National Post (National Edition)
Heritage minister consults France, Australia for tech giant crackdown
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OTTAWA minister said he hopes to move quickly on new rules to force tech giants like Facebook to compensate news companies when news articles are shared on the company's website.
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault has said he is looking to bring in rules similar to those proposed in France and Australia.
Australia has moved to force companies like Facebook and Google to compensate news outlets when their stories are shared on the platform. In response to Australia's draft rules, Facebook threatened to prevent users in that country from sharing news on their pages. France took similar measures and ordered Facebook to negotiate deals with publishers in the country.
The company said it is unfair of any government to ask Facebook to pay for what news companies are putting online for free.
Guilbeault said he is working flat out on the issue, but the process takes time because Canada needs to develop its own rules.
“We are talking to our French colleagues, of course to our Australian colleagues. We need to come up with a made-in-Canada approach. I mean, what France is doing, we can't just import this here. Same thing for Australia,” he said.
He said he wants to bring something in “very quickly,” but didn't set a specific date.
“We are working really hard to be able to present a memorandum to cabinet as soon as possible.”
In an interview with the National Post last week, Guilbeault said Facebook has to accept that change is coming and can't push back against all these countries at once.
“If Facebook starts boycotting all these countries, at some point their business model is going to face some serious challenges,” he said. “This is going to be a growing problem for them unless they decide to face the issue.”
Facebook and Google now collect the lion's share of advertising revenues, cutting into the money news outlets can make through online ads. Guilbeault, a former environmental activist, said he doesn't understand the companies' stance and hopes they confront the issue rather than simply fighting the government.
“I don't like bullying attitudes,” he said. “This really reminds me of how big polluters acted 20 years ago, and I don't think it's a very constructive approach.”