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The Online News Act came into force last week, aimed at supporting Canada’s struggling news sector, which has shut down hundreds of publications over the past decade.

This forces digital giants to enter into fair trade agreements with Canadian outlets for news and information shared on their platforms, or face binding arbitration.

In a statement, Google said the new law was “unenforceable” and that the government had given no reason to believe the “structural problems with the law” would be resolved upon its implementation.

In a blog post, Google added that it would be “more difficult for Canadians to find information online” and “for journalists to reach their audience.”

However, people from these countries will still be able to access news from the Canadian site by typing the respective web address directly into the browser or through the app.

Google’s announcement comes after recent talks with the government to onboard the company failed.

Tech giant Meta announced last Thursday that it would also block Canadian news on Facebook and Instagram.

The two companies, which dominate online advertising, have been accused of wasting money on traditional news outlets while using their content for free.

“We have informed the government that we have made the difficult decision that…we will remove links to Canadian news from our Search, News and Discover products and will no longer be able to operate Google News Showcase in Canada,” Google said. .

Canada’s action is based on Australia’s New Media Bargaining Code, a world first, which requires Google and Meta to pay for news content on their platforms.

Drikat signed a five-year neighboring rights agreement with Google in late 2021 to make the internet giant pay for the news agency’s content.

He also signed two commercial agreements with the platform.