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Google announced today that it will not remove links to Canadian media after all, thanks to an agreement with the Government of Canada over the controversial Online News Act, or Bill C-18. Kent Walker, president of global affairs for Google and Alphabet issued a statement stating that “following extensive discussions, we are pleased that the Government of Canada has committed to resolving our key issues with Bill C-18”, a rule designed to force large web platforms to pay media outlets for the use of their content. Although the exact terms have not yet been released, Walker says the government has addressed Google’s previous concerns about creating “uncapped financial liability” for links to articles, and a report says that it will pay millions of dollars to publishers as part of the deal.

As a result, “while we work with the government through the exemption process based on the regulations that will be released shortly, we will continue to send valuable traffic to Canadian publishers,” Walker said. The previous plan would have excluded these links from Google Search, News and Discover.

Walker writes that the negotiations included establishing a simplified exemption process for companies that met a “clear commitment threshold” – rumored in a CBC News report, an annual payment of around $100 million to local press companies, less than the $172 million for federal civil servants initially searched. According to CBC, the final regulatory text of Bill C-18 will allow Google to negotiate with a single group representing media organizations, limiting its need to work with many individual media outlets. “After months of standing our ground, demonstrating our commitment to local journalism, to ensuring that strong, independent journalists are paid for their work… Google has agreed to properly support journalists, including local journalism,” he said. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters, according to the media. .

Google and Meta were two of the main targets of the online information law, which was passed earlier this year and took effect in December. The rule, which Google has dubbed the “link tax,” is one of several nationwide attempts to shift money from big tech companies to news organizations. While both companies opposed the rule, Meta took a tougher stance on it, removing news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada, while Google said it was making attempts to negotiate the last chance. “Unlike search engines, we do not proactively scrape news from the Internet and place it in our users’ feeds, and we have long made clear that the only way to reasonably comply with the Internet News Act is to line is to end the availability of news to the citizens of Canada. ” Meta spokesperson Lisa Laventure said in response to today’s news.

Updated 6:05 p.m. ET: Added Meta statement.