The Decibel - The news Google is hiding from your searches

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Right now, one in 25 Canadians who use Google can’t find some news sites through its search bar. That’s because the tech giant has purposely blocked these searches in response to legislation put forward by the federal government.The Globe’s Deputy Ottawa bureau chief Bill Curry is on the show to explain the bill taking the fight to Google and other big tech companies and what the government is trying to accomplish with this legislation.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

You may have noticed that if you search for news using the Google search bar, you might not get some results. The tech giant is blocking news site searches for some Canadians in response to proposed legislation from the federal government. The Globe's Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief, Bill Curry, is on the show to explain what's going on. I'm Anika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Bill, it's good to have you back. Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks a lot. So when we say that Google is blocking news searches in Canada, what exactly does that mean? Well, we don't have a whole lot of detail as to what exactly they're doing, but it sounds like from some people who are using Google, when they're punching in looking for a specific story or some news through the search engine, certain news sites are just not appearing anymore. So, you know, that's pretty unusual. People rely on Google as a search engine that you can get results that you can trust. And so there's some strange things going on.

The sites themselves are not completely blocked. People in this situation are able to type into the browser the exact address of websites, and that still works. It's just the search results that are being changed. Okay. And how many people are being affected by this? Well, there's been reports that it's about 4% or 5% of users, but I think the details on this are very vague because Google has not wanted to really say a whole lot on the record as to what exactly is going on. So that's about one in 25 people then, if you're in Canada, you'd be affected by this then. And is this blocking a permanent thing? Like, do we know how long this is going to last for? Google hasn't said a whole lot about this,

but they've said it's a test, essentially. They've said that this test is going to last about five weeks. So this is a pretty big deal about how, and it affects how Canadians essentially use the internet here, Bill. Why is Google doing this? Well, I think this has to do with Bill C-18. Obviously, they have strong concerns about this piece of legislation. It is modeled after a bill that was approved in Australia a couple of years ago. And when Australia went in this direction, we saw similar moves by Google and Facebook in protest of this. And it was actually Facebook rather than Google in Australia that blocked access to news sites for a few days in protest just before the bill came into impact. Facebook actually also blocked some government websites, which really caused some controversy as well.

So it kind of forced them to change course. They were able to work out an arrangement with the Australian government, and ultimately Google and Facebook chose to live with that arrangement. So now we're seeing the same kind of lobbying play out in the run-up to C-18, which was introduced in April 2022. So it's been around for a while, but it's starting to get into the final stretch because it's been approved by the House of Commons and it's now in the Senate. So it's starting to get closer to becoming a reality and the lobbying efforts from Google and Facebook are intensifying. So what exactly is Bill C-18 then and what would it do? Well, it's one of several areas where the federal government is trying to legislate or regulate the internet. And this particular bill is related to

the news media. And I think perhaps the easiest way to understand it is to talk a little bit about what's in place right now. Right now, partly since the Australian government's bill was implemented, we've seen similar arrangements in Canada, which is licensing agreements between internet companies like Google and Facebook and Apple and media companies. So the Globe, for instance, the Globe and Mail has agreements with Google and Apple. And what it looks like in practice, if you were to open up your phone and look at Google Showcase, for instance, I think that would give your listeners an idea of what it looks like. It's a special news page on Google. Facebook has something similar, Apple News. And there you will be able to see all kinds of news stories

and news outlets like The Globe that have a paywall. You can access three or four articles for free via that news site, Google Showcase. And Google has arranged, has a deal with the participants, whether it's the Globe or the Toronto Star or other media outlets. And they pay those news outlets to be able to have a few free articles. Okay, so the tech company is paying the media outlet, and then the consumer essentially would get that for free. Yeah, exactly. So the consumer goes to Google showcase or Apple News, they get a few free articles. If they really like what they're reading, they can then go and subscribe for the full experience from that news outlet. And what this bill does

is it's meant to be a nudge to encourage Google and Facebook and these internet companies to strike similar deals with news outlets, you know, without any regulations. It's encouraging these deals to happen on their own. And then if that doesn't happen, the bill has arbitration processes in which then the government would step in and say essentially that because Google and Facebook are such large companies, and there's this power imbalance between media outlets, particularly smaller media outlets, and these companies, they can go to an arbitrator. And so it's a pretty high risk scenario for both sides. And so that's supposed to be like an

incentive to strike deals outside of this arrangement. Okay. So Bill C-18, what it's doing, it's kind of, it's encouraging tech companies to come to these deals with media outlets. But if that doesn't happen on its own, it's actually pushing that they have to do this. There's going to be a situation where a deal is going to have to be struck. Yeah, exactly. Okay. And so what companies are we talking about here? So you mentioned Google, Facebook, Apple. Are those kind of the big players in this scene? Yeah, they're not specifically named in the bill, but that is essentially what this is aimed at.

It's aimed at the very large internet platforms and search engines. Okay. You use the term power imbalance between the tech players and the media outlets in Canada. Can you tell me a little bit more about this? Like, what is the state of media in Canada right now that would make this bill necessary? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to take a step back, what's driving this is just the state of the news media. You know, we've had 20 years now of the news media trying to figure out how to live and coexist with the Internet. And it's been a challenge. The big issue is we've lost, as an industry, a lot of advertising.

You know, classified ads that used to be a huge source of revenue for newspapers and news outlets across the country just have gravitated to the Kijiji's and the auto traders of the world. Some outlets like the Globe have really relied on subscriptions. So we thank our subscribers for their support. But that hasn't worked for every outlet. And particularly smaller ones that were based on the flyers that would go to support a small town newspaper, that model has just faded away. And so the result is we're seeing dozens of newspapers across the country either go online only or fold entirely. When the government introduced the bill in April of last year, they did put out some figures saying that more than 450 news outlets had closed since 2008.

I mean, it's just following the news. You can see pretty much every month there's announcements of layoffs. We just saw in recent days global news. Several journalists across the country were laid off. So this is a constant thing that people in our business were used to seeing our colleagues laid off. So it's a real thing. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so this is kind of a bit of the problem that's supposed to be addressed with this bill.

Our publisher, Philip Crawley, actually wrote an op-ed about this. Could you tell us, I guess, the argument in that piece? Yeah, I mean this is a bill that has lots of opinions from all kinds of stakeholders, including the Golden Mail. There's also News Media Canada is an umbrella organization that represents news organizations. So it's essentially a lobbying group that represents all of the main news organizations, including the Globe and Mail. They're generally supportive of the bill and have proposed some amendments. For the Globe, the publisher, and just for our listeners, the publisher is a position that involves managing the business side of the Globe and Mail. The editor-in-chief is responsible for the news operations. So the publisher, his position is that supportive of the bill in principle, but has some concerns about some language in the bill about the role of the CRTC in there, which the CRTC is a broadcasting regulator, regulating TV stations and radio. And so this

would be the first time the CRTC would actually have a role in regulating newspapers. The bill and the government suggest this might be more of an administrative role of just disclosing information about how these processes work. But the publisher has recommended tighter language amendments to tighten the language to limit the role of the CRTC in this process. All right. So the point of Bill C-18 then, the idea is that it could actually get some revenue back to media organizations in Canada that have been struggling on that front. How much money could this bill bring in for news companies? We've heard a few numbers throughout the hearings. It's been suggested it

might be around $200 million, but the parliamentary budget officer has suggested it could be about $329 million that would come from these online operators and go to the news sector. And then he said most of that would go to broadcasters like CBC and Bell and Sean Rogers. They'd get about $247 million. And then online media and newspapers would get $81 million of that. So that raised some eyebrows because the bill was presented as a response to newspapers closing all across the country. We'll be back in a minute. All right, so we started this conversation talking about Google blocking new search results online.

So let's bring it back to the tech companies here, Bill. They have said that they don't like Bill's C-18 in its current form. And that's why we're seeing this retaliatory action from Google. So what are the concerns from tech companies about this bill? Well, one of their main concerns that Facebook and Google raise repeatedly is they are concerned that this would be an unworkable link tax, which they say. So, you know, the internet is full of links. People are constantly saying, you know, hey, read the story and there's a link and that's kind of how the internet works. And they argue that this is going to force them to somehow track these links and put that into the calculation of how much money they pay to the news organizations. So there's some issues with that. But when you're talking about this bill, one of the problems in explaining it or saying who's right or who's wrong when people list their concerns,

is that a lot of the details won't be known until later. A lot of the details in terms of how this is actually going to work are going to come through regulations approved by cabinet or perhaps policy decisions by the CRTC. So for in the case of the link tax, the word link tax or link is not in the bill. You know, you can't say definitively how this will work in practice. And they are worried then essentially that they'd be paying money for each of those links, like it would cost them more eventually? Exactly. I think their concern is this could be some limitless amount that they could owe that's based on factors that they don't control. They've also raised some concerns. Google, for instance, has said the language might force them to treat

all kinds of websites that claim to be news sites as equal. Is that if the enforcement mechanism is not thoroughly thought out and thought out in the context of bad actors, it ends up being gamed and misused by bad actors that has a negative consequence on the user experience and the discoverability of information. And so their argument is that this bill is going to mess with their own efforts to give people the most credible sources of news. Isn't this a bit of a risky move for Google, Bill? When we're talking about a search engine not surfacing certain search results for news organizations, doesn't that kind of get to their credibility here, like the lose credibility with their customers?

Well, I mean, it's a pretty high stakes lobbying move for sure. I mean, Google's credibility, as you mentioned, is the Google search engine. And it's far and away the number one source for search news. Like that's where people go to, right? You know, Bing is probably number two, but it's a distant number two. And so, you know, their reputation is at stake here. So it kind of speaks to, I guess, how seriously they take this because, you know, Facebook and Google lobbied hard on Australia, not so much because they were concerned about what happens in Australia, but it was more the precedent, right? Because once this happened in Australia, other countries are watching this. Canada is not the only country that is looking to do something similar, right?

So Google and Facebook are watching closely what's happening in Canada out of concern that it's going to create bills and obligations for them that are going to be quite expensive in countries all around the world. Yeah, that's interesting. What has been the response from the federal government to Google blocking news on their site? What has the Trudeau government said? He had a news conference recently where he was asked a whole bunch of questions that had nothing to do with this bill, and he just voluntarily wanted to jump in and comment on Google and be very critical of Google. It really surprises me that Google has decided that they'd rather prevent Canadians from

accessing news than actually paying journalists for the work they do. I think that's a terrible mistake, and I know Canadians expect journalists to be well-paid for the work they do. I think it's pretty clear from that that politically they see this as something that they want to jump on. They want to be seen as standing up to the big tech companies, which is a bit of a shift for the Trudeau government and the prime minister in particular because in the early days of this government, 2015, they used to love having news conferences with Google executives and Facebook executives. And they even welcomed Google when Google wanted to build sidewalk labs in Toronto. It was going to be this very tech-focused whole community in Toronto. And that

ultimately fell apart. So I think the political dynamic of being seen to be close to the tech giants has completely changed from the early days of this liberal government to now. Can the government actually do anything to stop Google from blocking access like this, Bill? Like when we talk about the power that the government has versus the power that a tech company has, what's the balance there or the imbalance there? I think that's the backstory of all of this is that for years, these companies have gotten bigger and bigger, the Google and Facebooks of the world, and countries have really applied a pretty light touch in terms of regulation. Facebook and Google have tried to argue that that is not necessary, that they are good social actors. And increasingly, we're starting to see

the governments are deciding that, no, in fact, these companies are so large and they are so important in the lives of citizens that they do require some regulation. So what we're seeing is in Canada, rather than tackle it all at once, the government is moving to regulate these platforms piecemeal. So this bill we're talking about is about the news media. There's also a bill about the broadcasting sector. And then Promise, but not yet introduced, is going to be another bill on online harms, which potentially could be more controversial than the other two previous ones, because that's going to get into what appears on platforms in areas like hate speech and all kinds of things.

So the government can regulate whatever it wants, really, through laws. The question is, you know, what's warranted? What's the public willing to accept? And so they're dipping their toes in this water and it's uncharted territory, which makes it a very fascinating area to watch in Parliament. You've mentioned that Australia had a similar bill, which became law in March 2021. And Bill C-18 in Canada is actually modeled on that Australian bill. Are there any lessons for Canada that we can take away from what happened then in Australia around this? Well, I think it's interesting to know that the kicking and screaming of the Googles and Facebooks was very loud in the final moments of that bill. And they warned that the sky would fall.

And then the bill came through and the sky didn't fall. Like they, the arbitration processes have largely not been used. Deals were struck between the platforms and the media outlets and, you know, life went on. So, you know, there are some differences with this bill. As mentioned, there's a lot of vagaries in terms of what could happen down the road. So potentially the big warnings could materialize in Canada that didn't materialize in Australia. But it's hard to know because we don't really know what the regulations are going to look like should this bill be passed and then implemented. Google execs are appearing at the Heritage Committee today, Monday. They'll be answering questions about the decision to block new searches. And meanwhile, this bill is being considered in the Senate still. So, Bill, what are you watching for what might happen next year? Well, I mean, it would be very interesting to hear directly from the Google executives

on what exactly happened, because this is really unusual to change the search engine that so many people use and have it not surface news results. So how they came about that decision, how it actually works, who's affected, did they target specific people or was it just a random percentage of users? Those are questions that I think a lot of people want answered. So I think we'll be curious to see what exactly we get to look at when the meeting happens. Bill, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here today. Thanks a lot. That's it for today.

I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.