Canada is following in the footsteps of Australia in having Google pay news publishers for listing content. Last year Google agreed to pay for some Australian news.

Canada is looking to pass the Online News Act. If it becomes law it would force tech companies to negotiate deals with news organizations for content that appears on their platforms.

Matt G. Southern writes at SearchEngineJournal.com that the Online News Act would prevent tech companies from penalizing or giving preference to news organizations they’ve reached agreements with.

Everyone gets paid, even those undeserving

Google looks to be concerned that undeserving organizations can and will get paid. They could be publishing fake news or misinformation. The proposal states that all that is needed is for an organization to have two paid journalists in Canada.

Google claims a link tax would “break” search results for everyone.

I think it’s only common sense that if Australia and Canada have this legislation, that many more countries would propose something similar. Why wouldn’t they? If you are a news organization in New Zealand,Sweden, the U.S. or anywhere in the world even, why would you not say to your lawmakers, “They are paying Canada and Australia, what about us?”

You can read the full article on SearchEngineJournal.com which adds a lot more points about the proposal.