Google The company has begun blocking access to California news outlets for some users in the state, according to a report Notice from the tech giant on Friday. And all because Google is upset about proposed legislation that would force the company to pay some publishers for their content, something called a “link tax.”
Known as California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), the bill has passed California’s lower house, known as the Assembly, but must still be approved by the state Senate and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to become law. Newsom has yet to comment on the legislation.
“If the CJPA passes, it may result in significant changes to the services we can provide to Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers,” Google said on Friday. “By helping people find news, we help publishers of all sizes grow their audiences at no cost to them.”
And while it’s certainly true that Google helps people find news, the problem is that much of the advertising money has gone to Big Tech platforms like Google and Facebook, rather than the publishers that create the news content. This is exactly where this bill seeks to remedy the situation by forcing Google to pay publishers.
Google has made similar threats after similar proposals were made in countries like… Australia, IndiaAnd Canada in recent years. In almost all cases, Google has proposed shutting down Google services like Search across the country, but has ultimately followed the laws in each jurisdiction without too much disruption.
Metas Facebook has faced similar hurdles in other countries that require the company to pay to aggregate local news content. But while Google gave in, Facebook decided to go in a completely new direction. That direction includes shutting down news services entirely while insisting that Facebook users not do so care about news.
Google on Friday acknowledged the struggles it has waged in other countries, without mentioning that it has paid out millions to publishers.
As we have previously communicated when other countries considered similar proposals, the unlimited financial risk created by CJPA would not be feasible. If passed, CJPA in its current form would create a level of business uncertainty that no company could accept. To prepare for potential CJPA impacts, we are starting with a short-term test for a small percentage of California users. The testing process includes removing links to California news websites that may be subject to the CJPA to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience. Until there is clarity on California’s regulatory environment, we are also pausing further investments in the California news ecosystem, including new partnerships through Google News Showcase, our product and licensing program for news organizations, and planned expansions of the Google News Initiative.
Google did not respond to emailed questions Friday about how many users in California are currently involved in this “testing process” to remove links to California news sites. It’s also not clear what qualifies as a California news site, given the borderless nature of the Internet.
Google argues that proposed California legislation would only benefit large publishers, but some people claim that’s a red herring. As a commenter on Cal Matters wrote in a recent opinion column:
Critics argue that the CJPA would primarily benefit large media companies, but the fact that large news organizations benefit from it isn’t necessarily a bad thing: They employ thousands of people, create jobs, conduct costly investigations, and lobby on behalf of them of journalism. They also generate and receive the most traffic from technology platforms.
Clearly there are a number of different factors at play here, and reasonable people cannot agree on what role the government should play in maintaining journalistic business models. But there’s no question that companies like Google have monopoly power over what news people around the world can see.
After all, the first thing companies like Google and Facebook did when confronted with legislation on paying publishers was to threaten to shut down news to everyone in those countries. And if only a handful of companies are able to do this, it can hardly be said that market solutions can solve the problem.