Google rejects Canadian regulation, may suspend news links
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Canadians are one step closer to losing news on Alphabet's Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) after the tech giant rejected regulations meant to placate concerns over an upcoming law, Bloomberg reported.
Canada has been trying to compel Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META) to pay local publishers under an act set to go into effect on December 19.
The government is attempting to devise regulations that companies will find acceptable ahead of the law going into effect. Meta (META) and Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) can avoid arbitration by agreeing to pay news outlets 4% of annual revenue in Canada in return for carrying links to news articles. Under those terms, Google would be expected to pay about C$172M, or roughly $126M, per year. 
âWe continue to have serious concerns that the core issues ultimately may not be solvable through regulation and that legislative changes may be necessary,â Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) spokesperson Shay Purdy said by email to Bloomberg on Friday.
Google said it may have to âsuspend links to news contentâ without defining a specific time period, instead of participating in a mandatory bargaining process while it applies for exemption. Meta (META) has also dismissed the regulations and will continue blocking users from seeing news on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, pulled news from the platforms in June. 
âWhile the regulations seek to âprovide clarity about the application of the act,â they unfortunately create greater uncertainty, by attempting to transform the mandatory bargaining model set out in the act into more of a levy model,â Google Canada said.
âThe result of this exercise is a hybrid model that captures the worst of both worlds, imposing the obligations of a levy without providing any of its certainty, and requiring Google to absorb all of the responsibilities and costs associated with negotiating agreements and disbursing funds while eliminating any flexibility in actual arrangements,â the company said.
Last month, the Canadian government released draft rules that would attempt to assuage concerns from both Meta and Google that would limit their liability from the legislation, known as the Online News Act.
The draft rules state that both companies need to voluntarily negotiate deals with Canadian news publishers and siphon off a portion of their global sales, with the formula based on a set calculation. Monetary and non-monetary contributions will be part of the deal and will take into account pre-existing deals.

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