Google vs. the Canadian government: Who blinks first?

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings For all of us, it’s become synonymous with asking the entire internet a question. Just Google it. And when you’re looking for the most recent news from anywhere in Canada, it can be an important resource, like during an extreme weather event or I don’t know when we’re shooting down UFOs, that might be spy balloons, but right now some Canadians, and you could even be one of them, are searching for Canadian news on Google and finding nothing. That’s because the company is testing their words, not ours. A project that blocks some Canadians from accessing Canadian news on its platform. Google calls it testing, but the Canadian government calls it bullying because it sure looks like this is a response to the continued progression of a bill that would force companies like Google and Facebook to compensate Canadian. Companies for the content user. C in Google News, nice platform for local news. The test seems to say it’d be a shame if anything were to happen to it. The test should end sometimes soon, but the bill C 18 is currently sitting with the Senate and if and when it passes, the question will no longer be a task. It will be who blinks. The government says that it won’t back down. So would Google really pull access to Canadian news for all Canadian users just to avoid paying publishers? What would actually happen if they did make that move? And what does this whole fight say about how reliant both publishers and Canadians have become on a handful of multi-billion dollar companies for access to. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the Big story. Mickey George is an Ottawa based reporter with the Canadian Press. She covers federal politics.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hi Mickey.

Mickey George Hello.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings The first thing I have to ask you. What the heck is Google doing exactly? Before we get to the why and the political fight and the bill behind this and everything, just what’s happening.

Mickey George So, yeah, so essentially Google, uh, has confirmed that they are limiting news to some of its Canadian users. So essentially people who search for news on, their search engine or people who use the Discover panel on Android devices, they will be impacted by this, just a small portion of them. So some of them may no longer see news stories popping up for them on their search engine or on the Discover panel. Some may only see American news pop up, but Google says they are doing this for about five weeks, but they won’t say when they started. So it’s really unclear when the test will end.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Okay. You mentioned that they confirmed this was happening. You asked them. How did you figure out this was happening? I guess there was some detective work involved.

Mickey George Yeah, just some office chit chat and I joke some vanity. Uh, definitely played a part. So, um, because I work for the new, the wire service, our stories can be picked up by many newspapers, news sites, broadcasters. So oftentimes when we write a story, we actually don’t know who picked it up. So what we do is that we Google ourselves because we wanna tweet out our story. So, um, a couple of us were talking in the newsroom, how we were searching stories or searching our byline or searching the headline of our stories and we, like nothing was coming. And we started noticing this about a few weeks ago, and I had realized that one of my stories that was not showing up on Google had actually been picked up by multiple news outlets. And I thought, that’s weird. Why is this happening? Because here I was thinking that people just aren’t interested in the stories I was writing anymore. And that my news sense was completely off. But uh, yeah, people were picking up the stories, it just wasn’t showing up on Google search. And so I reached out to Google and I said, Hey, I’m no longer getting news on my, Google search engine. What’s up? And they confirm that yes, they are, limiting access to some Canadian users, and I just happen to be one of them.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Okay, so here’s where we talk about why this is happening and the fight at the heart of this, and, and this question could be a whole episode on its own, and I, I think we’ve done one so people can go back and listen to that one. But for those who don’t know or haven’t gotten that deep into it, just what exactly is Bill C-18? How does it factor in here? This is what the fight is over, right?

Mickey George Yeah, so I’ll try to keep it short because yes, it’s so contentious. You can have so many episodes on this. So Bill C-18, it’s also known as the Online News Act. So what it will do is if it becomes law, it will require Google and Facebook to essentially strike deals with media outlets and pay these media outlets for their links. So content that essentially generates clicks in advertising. Google and Facebook would have to pay for that, and Google says they are limiting news in response to this bill because it opposes the bill also along with Facebook. And the government believes that this law actually will create more of a level playing field for journalism outlets because they compete directly with Facebook and Google for these advertising dollars.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Do we have any idea, how much money we’re talking about here? Like these are, multi-billion dollar companies.

Mickey George I don’t know how much, is at stake, but how much do Canadian media outlets, which obviously are struggling a little bit, stand to earn from this? So we actually kind of have. Some idea. So the parliamentary budget officer, he projects that there’s gonna be hundreds of millions of dollars at stake here.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Okay?

Mickey George So they did this report a while ago, and they say that the Online News Act is gonna provide, about $330 million annually to news businesses across Canada. So that money’s gonna be coming from Facebook and Google. It estimates that news businesses would also spend about 21 million in order to you, cut these deals with these companies. So there’s a lot of money, at stake here. Some smaller outlets have been critical because they believe that most of the money is gonna go to big broadcasters who have already bigger budgets than the smaller outlets do. So right now they’re testing this for five weeks for some Canadians.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Is the threat here that they will just block all news, all Canadian news for all Canadians if this bill passes? Like, is that what we’re talking about here?

Mickey George So we don’t really know what their objective is. They, they say that they run thousands of tests a year all across Canada, and that this is just kind of response to that bill, but it’s still, to be determined and, and Google maintains that this is just purely, a five week test right now. It just kind of looks like a flex. It looks like a flex. The government has been very critical in saying that this is a way for Google to just intimidate Canadians, to intimidate, you know, politicians and to essentially try to get their way. But Google, you know, sticking to their guns and saying, we do tests all the time. This is just one of them.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings In terms of the legislation itself, does Google have criticisms of what’s in there and how it’ll be implemented? Besides not obviously wanting to pay hundreds of millions of dollars?

Mickey George So Google, who I’ve spoken to that you say, you know, it’s not really about paying money for them. They propose creating this media fund. They would rather contribute to, and then media can take from that. Experts I talked to say this is just about Google resisting government regulation. They do not want to be regulated by the Canadian government. Um, Google also feels, I kind of mentioned this earlier, but Google also feels this bill won’t necessarily enhance journalism, because they feel the bill is just gonna lead to news outlets just producing essentially clickbait. So they don’t think it’s gonna enhance and, you know, make journalism better. And, they also shared similar concerns with, smaller publications who feel that the money is gonna go largely to legacy media. And it might as a result, edge out competitiveness from newsrooms who have maybe one or two or three employees, but, but to do good work so they don’t feel like this is gonna necessarily improve journalism. And they, Google feels, if this is just about money, fine, we’ll create, you know, this media fund. And, and people can take from that.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings But, the government is saying, Nope, we want this. What has the reaction to your reporting on this been? You know, you mentioned briefly from the government. I’d like to hear more about that, but also just from, from regular Canadians, who, for them and for, I think most of us, you know, to Google something is synonymous with searching the entire internet, you know?

Mickey George I think it really impacts people who are doing research. I don’t think people, everyday people who consume news necessarily search out, you know, what are the top headlines. But if they do, they’re gonna be impacted by this. But people who are looking for a certain topic or wanna cite, something that was in the media a few weeks ago, they’re gonna be affected by this if they are online. 4% of Canadian users who are being targeted by this test. And also some users are only gonna see American news while, some will see no news at all. So in our newsroom, there’s a couple of us who, are only getting American news, while others are getting no news at all. Google wouldn’t confirm or or deny if that’s part of their test, but that that also is something that people are experiencing, right.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings What do we know about how many Canadians this is impacting right now? Do we know, like what do we know about the details, I guess, of this, uh, quote unquote test?

Mickey George Yeah, so all they would say is that less than 4% of their Canadian users are being impact right now. Um, they will not provide us. A, uh, number of how many people that actually is, but it is impacting anyone who creates online news. So broadcasters, newspapers, digital publishers, if they produce online content, their online content is likely not showing up during this test. So we’re talking about 4% theoretically of the traffic that comes to them.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings From Google?

Mickey George Yeah, from their Canadian users. Yeah.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Has this been tried elsewhere?

Mickey George I know that Canada is not the only country to be moving forward with this kind of regulatory approach to sustain local media, so this is actually becoming. Quite common for technology giants to do something like this. They run tests everywhere. But this is the first time in Canada that Google has run a test that is limiting news to some of its users. They also blocked their news service in Spain for about eight years. Uh, they recently unblocked news content, but they did it in response to a local law. Like in Canada would basically require these companies to pay publishers for using some of their content. Um, in China actually last year, Google took away displays for some news stories on their search engine in response to a copyright bill. So you would only see the headline of a story. You wouldn’t get like the little snippets or thumbnails or even, uh, the video previews. Those do not show up anymore. Um, in. And Australia was actually the first country to introduce this type of bill in Canada’s essentially copying it, with the online News Act. But Australia has had to deal with a, lot of this, which they define as bullying and, and intimidation and Facebook even blocked news temporarily, in Australia when they was working on getting their bill, going. And, Facebook has also threatened to pull from, you know, their users is in Canada as well, but since the Australian version of the bill passed in 2021, its government says the bill actually has helped enhance journalism.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mm-hmm.

Mickey George They feel that the bill has been very successful and people I’ve spoken to who have also dealt with, you know, publishers in Australia are telling, Canada, just hang in there. It’s typical for these, tech giants to, like you mentioned earlier, essentially flex on us. But once these bills come to fruition and they pass, they, they essentially, you know, come in line and, and obey the law.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings What’s the government doing right now? You mentioned that they don’t like this, obviously, and they, they don’t plan to change the bill. Um, is there anything there?

Mickey George Minister of Canadian Heritage, uh, Pablo Rodriguez. He has said Canadians will not be intimidated. So the bill actually has passed the House of Commons. So the next step is, it’s in the Senate. In the Senate in the next few months are gonna be studying the bill clause by clause. And I’m curious to see if Google shows up to, um, some of those discussions in the Senate. I know Facebook is planning to show up to some discussions in the Senate. But in response to, the story that I broke regarding Google blocking news, some MPs uh, in the heritage committee meeting have decided that they are going to summon the c e o of Google and some of their executives, and they are trying to get, the c e o and three other top executives to appear on March 6th, uh, in front of a committee. The problem is, uh, some of these individuals do live in America, and when you summon somebody, you can only summon essentially Canadian citizens. So they don’t necessarily have to show up, but if they decide that they don’t show up to the meeting, then, these politicians can essentially order the house of comments to summon them if they ever step foot in Canada.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hmm.

Mickey George So what I know is that the summon papers have been served to the c e O and these individuals. But the last I’ve heard is that the Google has not responded to the government. So I don’t know, how this is gonna play out. It might be some, some political theater in the days ahead.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Given the context of this whole thing and what you just described, in terms of efforts in other countries in the world and legislation that has passed, and, and Google has backed down, or Facebook has backed down, you know, how long can they keep this up? Is it kind of inevitable that they’re going to face these kind of regulations anyway?

Mickey George Yeah. The European Union is also looking into similar laws, uh, to what? To Canada’s online news act. You know, Pablo Rodriguez, the, the Heritage Minister, has said that these, these type of bills that Canada is pushing through that relate to media that will regulate these big tech companies that the world is watching, because this is kind of the way that, you know, governments are heading where they, they want. Big tech companies to, to have some accountability and to be regulated under certain laws, where for many years, Google and Facebook didn’t have that. So I think people that I’ve spoken to have said this is just essentially a natural, you know, response. They don’t wanna be regulated. The government wants to regulate them. So, yeah, you’re gonna kind of see this head-to-head fighting. And experts I’ve also talked to have pointed out that Google and Facebook are very powerful. So when you know a bill is being introduced or passed, that does affect them, they are gonna, you know, they’re gonna flex their muscles, they’re gonna do what they can, um, and use their powers to try to influence whether that law is passed or.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings These are two dominant companies, obviously, um, in the web space, but they’re not the only ones. And if they’re going to be. Pushing back on this and blocking news, you know, what’s the way around it? Uh, for Canadians or anybody else who’s impacted, like, yes, we’re used to Googling things, but you can just use Bing and instead of Facebook, you can maybe get on Twitter, right? Like, there are are options here and is that a threat to these companies?

Mickey George I’m not really sure. I think this is kind of where the gray area is, because I think how the bill is defined, it’s essentially the companies that are gonna be regulated under this online news Act is, is companies that you know, essentially have a competitive edge. So whether the government believes Beam has a competitive edge or. Um, you know, duck dot go has a competitive edge. I’m sure they would love to hear that . Yeah. I’m not sure. So, but you know, the government has been talking about this in the context of, you know, we’re going after Google, we’re going after Facebook, and I think there is some feelings by Google and Facebook that you know, well, why are you creating a bill just for us?

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hmm.

Mickey George If you’re gonna create a bill, it should affect, you know, all platforms that offer this, uh, similar service. But as you did mention, yeah, I’ve spoken to people who now don’t use Google because, they’re not getting the results they want when they’re searching for stuff. So they are, you know, looking up stuff on other things. So it, I think that’s something that I’m definitely gonna keep an eye on and others are gonna keep an eye on of how this does shake out. And if it does put pressure, other companies to maybe be regulated as well. And I guess now we wait a few months to see the bill pass and see who blinks first.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Yeah, absolutely.

Mickey George Wait to see, uh, if the bill passes and who blinks first. I know. Uh, Facebook, I mentioned that they had, uh, threatened to also pull news in, uh, Canada. They don’t wanna pay publishers at all. They say, you know, people willingly choose to put their links on their news site. You know, Google, who essentially pulls these links together for its search engine, they just don’t believe in it at all. And I asked, uh, you know, representatives from Facebook if they’re planning on, um, going ahead with that threat. And they essentially said that they are, you know, if they do decide to block news for Canadians on Facebook, that they will announce it to the public. It won’t be, uh, what Google did where we kind of had to, you know, say, hey, what’s happening?

Jordan Heath-Rawlings I guess we’ll wait and see in, uh, in the meantime, thanks for your initial detective work and your reporting on this.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Yes, thank you.

Mickey George I’m still searching now to see like, is my news back? I wanna know when that five weeks is up, but yeah, I still don’t have access to news, so I don’t know if you’re one of them, but it is, it’s, it’s annoying.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Thanks again, Mickey.

Mickey George Yeah, thanks.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mickey George of the Canadian Press. That was the tiny story. You can find more at the big story podcast.ca. If you don’t want to hear ads on this podcast, you can subscribe to an ad free feed. It’s called TBS Plus. You can get it on Apple Podcasts. It’s really cheap. It pays us directly.And you will never have to hear another advertisement. You can also email us hello at the Big story podcast.ca or find us on Twitter at the Big story fp n. If you have a smart speaker and you wanna listen to this podcast without touching anything, just ask it to play the Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.