Canada regulator to proceed with levy on Google for news content

A Canada media regulator has insisted it will hit Google with a fee to recover the cost of enforcing a law that requires large platforms to pay for news content on their internet sites.

Effectively, it is a levy placed on the U.S. tech giant, coming at a time of fraught relations between Ottawa and Washington. 

The situation has been heightened following the return of President Donald Trump to the White House and his proposals on trade, tariffs, and border security.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has outlined that most of its operations are funded by the fees it charges to the companies under its regulation remit. 

As part of this, the cost recovery directive for the Online News Act will come into effect on April 1 in Canada.

Google had rebuked the requirement, arguing it was not a rational approach to pursue 100% of costs on one entity, but much of the responsibility comes with Google’s vast search monopoly and its sprawling web presence.

However, the CRTC settled on the rule following a lengthy public consultation. 

Online News Regulatory Policy CRTC 2025-57: Cost Recovery (Online News Act) Regulations https://t.co/sIyst050Sh

The regs only apply to Google, so the #CRTC is going to only tax @googlecanada to cover a lot of new regulatory costs.

This isn't going to ease cross-border tensions pic.twitter.com/nKFgOmhrKz

— Mark Goldberg (@Mark_Goldberg) February 26, 2025

The law was passed last year, adding Canada to the trend of many nations making tech giants pay for news content. 

This was in response to growing concerns that traditional news publishers were being absorbed and liquidated from the online advertising market.

Alphabet-owned Google and Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta were the only mega companies to meet the threshold to be held accountable to pay news providers.

Eventually, Google consented to pay C$100 million ($69.32m) per year to keep its search results populated with news, but Mark Zuckerberg’s company opted to block Canadian news from its platforms to avoid picking up the tab.

Image credit: Grok/X

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