Google has warned it will stop linking to New Zealand news if the country passes a law requiring tech companies to pay for content shown on its platforms.
This past July, New Zealand’s government announced that lawmakers would advance a bill requiring tech companies to share revenue generated from news content with the media outlets that produce it.
Earlier this year, over 200 jobs were lost in New Zealand’s national media industry which had 1,600 reporters at the 2018 census and has likely decreased since.
In response to the proposed law, Google New Zealand Country Director Caroline Rainsford wrote in a blog post on Friday that the search engine giant would change its involvement with the country’s media if the law passed.
“Specifically, we’d be forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers,” she wrote.
Rainsford added that Google’s licensing program in New Zealand gave “millions of dollars per year to almost 50 local publications.”
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However, Colin Peacock—an analyst who hosts the Mediawatch program on RNZ, New Zealand’s public radio broadcaster—said one of Google’s funding recipients, the publisher of a small newspaper, told a parliamentary committee earlier this year that the amount he received was “a pittance” and not enough to employee just one graduate reporter.
Google “doesn’t want headlines around the world that say another country has pushed back” with enacting a law like the one New Zealand is considering, Peacock said.
Andrew Holden, the public affairs director of New Zealand’s News Publishers’ Association (NPA), called Google’s post “threats” in a statement on Friday. Holden said Google misrepresented New Zealand’s proposed law and that its post “demonstrates the kind of pressure that it has been applying to the Government and news media companies.”
Holden added that the New Zealand government “should be able to make laws to strengthen democracy in this country without being subjected to this kind of corporate bullying.”
Minister for Media and Communications Paul Goldsmith, who previously said he planned to pass the law by the end of the year, told The Associated Press on Friday that he was still consulting on the next version of the bill.
“My officials and I have met with Google on a number of occasions to discuss their concerns, and will continue to do so,” he said.
Other countries have tried to enact similar laws, with some success, even after pushback from tech companies like Google.
Australia became the first country to try to make tech companies, including Google and Meta, pay for the news they produced with a law passed in 2021. The tech firms first blocked news content for Australians on their platforms but later made deals with Australian media outlets reportedly worth about $137 million a year.
However, Belinda Barnet, a media expert at Swinburne University in Melbourne, said Meta has refused to renew its contracts and Google is renegotiating its initial deals.
Newsweek reached out to Google and Meta for comment via email on Friday afternoon.
Canada passed a law in 2023 that required tech companies to pay news publishers for their content. In response, Meta blocked news content for Canadians on their platform and Google vowed to do the same. Google later agreed to give about $74 million a year to support Canadian news companies.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.