Google Says Changes to the Online News Act Are Not Enough ⇥ theglobeandmail.com

Marie Woolf, the Globe and Mail:

The proposed regulations set a $230-million cap on the amount Google and Facebook would together have to inject into Canada’s news sector. Google would have to pay $172-million of that.

But in an e-mailed statement on Monday, the final day of a month-long public consultation period on the draft regulations, Google said the government’s proposals have not fixed what it sees as fundamental flaws with the legislation. It warned that making wholesale changes to the text of the Online News Act may be the only way to address its concerns. This would require bringing the bill back to Parliament.

If Canadian publishers did not like the unfair arrangement of losing so much of their potential revenue to U.S.-based ad-based businesses that also happen to be a significant source of referrals, they will definitely dislike it when they still have to advertise with Google’s technology but no longer see its referrals.