Canadas capital city Ottawa has now opened up about how a new law requiring digital giants to pay publishes for news content will work in practice, including the price it might cost Meta and Google.Tech giants may pay whooping amount Canada under Online News ActThis new bill focuses on supporting a struggling Canadian news sector that has seen a flight of advertising dollars and hundreds of publications closed in the last decade.Moreover, it also targets only Google and Meta, which control over 80 per cent of all online advertising revenues in North American countries.According to the reports, the government has estimated that it could cost the two tech giants a combined Can$230 million, which is equivalent to USD 170 million, by requiring them to make fair commercial deals with the news outlets in Canada that are shared on their platforms or face binding arbitration.In a draft of regulations released on Friday, the measures would apply to companies with global annual revenues over Can$1 billion, operating a search engine or social media platform actively used by at least 20 million Canadians and that distributes news.Meta & Googles stance on this latest billNow, Mark Zuckerbergs Meta reacted to this by calling the bill fundamentally flawed and vowed to continue blocking access to Canadian users to news articles on its Facebook and Instagram platforms. This all started on August 01.Meanwhile, Google, which also voiced about the Online News Act, said that it would carefully study the proposed regulations to assess whether they address (its) major structural challenges.Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge noted that Canadians have come to rely on digital platforms for news and information.“These tech platforms have to act responsibly and support the news sharing they and Canadians both benefit from,” she said, adding, “Tech giants can and must contribute their fair share — nothing more.”
