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Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates
Thanks for once again providing solid context without getting emotional and snarky like many in political threads.
Appreciate the clarity you always bring to these discussions.
Any idea what the main complaint from someone like Google is? Does it seem mainly profit related or are they voicing concerns with some merit?
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The Google thing is a whole different bill where the government is basically trying to extract some cash from foreign tech companies. That one is pretty ridiculous on its face, as it wants certain companies to essentially pay money to Canadian media for just linking to their content. But it's also not without precedent. Australia did something similar and I think the EU is heading that way as well.
But the way Australia did it was they essentially used it as a hammer to get the companies to the table and then they set up funding agreements with Australian media in order to be exempted. So far that's not working in Canada's case, probably because the law is more poorly written. And because these companies might know that this is coming elsewhere, so they don't want to cave here and set a precedent. Meta has pulled out of linking Canadian news and Google might head that way too.
Right now it's sort of a game of chicken, where the government is hoping the companies will blink and vice versa. But to me it seems like a pretty stupid gamble for the government to make, particularly given their low popularity. But Canadian media oligopolies have a lot of lobbyists, so this is the result.