New York (CNN) 鈥� Google is removing links to California news websites in reaction to proposed state legislation to pay news outlets for their content, the company Friday in a blog post.
Google, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet (), wrote the move would affect only a small percentage of California users, and is intended as a 鈥渢est,鈥� allowing the company to gauge 鈥渢he impact of the legislation on our product experience.鈥�
The California Journalism Preservation Act, which was introduced in March 2023 and is by the state鈥檚 Senate Judiciary Committee, would require digital platforms like Google and Meta to pay a 鈥渏ournalism usage fee鈥� to eligible news outlets when they use their content alongside digital ads.
Meta has not returned CNN鈥檚 request for comment.
The bill comes as more people have shifted away from finding and consuming news though traditional media and toward social and online platforms. The legislation was introduced the companies鈥� news aggregation practices will , which have sounded the alarm about how platforms have gained increasingly unfettered control over the content they allow users to see.
On Friday evening, California State Senate President Pro-Tempore Mike McGuire, a co-author of the bill, called the move an act of 鈥渂ullying鈥� and an 鈥渁buse of power.鈥�
鈥淭his is a dangerous threat by Google that not only sets a terrible precedent here in America, but puts public safety at risk for Californians who depend on the news to keep us informed of life-threatening emergencies and local public safety incidents,鈥� he wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. 鈥淭his is a breach of public trust and we call on Google Executives to answer for this stunt.鈥�
Lawmakers and proponents of the bill make money by sharing content from small and local news publishers, but the publishers do not reap the same financial benefits.
鈥淭hese dominant digital ad companies are enriching their own platforms with local news content without adequately compensating the originators,鈥� the bill鈥檚 co-author, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, wrote in a statement when the legislation was first introduced in March 2023. 鈥淚t鈥檚 time they start paying market value for the journalism they are aggregating at no cost from local media.鈥�
Charles F. Champion, the president and CEO of the California 太子探花 Publishers Association, said Google is suppressing California news.
鈥淭he fact that one company can shut down the means by which 90% of the public find online content in order to achieve their own political and business ends show just how much policymakers need to act, and act now,鈥� he posted Friday on X. 鈥淕oogle is not above the law, and they should not be allowed to act as if they are.鈥�
鈥淕oogle鈥檚 threat to deny critical information to Californians as a response to proposed legislation 鈥� is outrageous,鈥� Chris Argentieri, the president and chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Times, told CNN in a statement on Saturday. 鈥淕oogle鈥檚 response is another data point that actually supports the need for the legislation and shows the merits of the scrutiny they are facing from the U.S. Department of Justice. California has a long history of rejecting bullying tactics of this kind, and I fully expect the result in this case will be no different.鈥�
Google has long argued against what it calls a 鈥渓ink tax.鈥�
鈥淎s we鈥檝e shared when other countries have considered similar proposals, the uncapped financial exposure created by CJPA would be unworkable,鈥� said Jaffer Zaidi, Vice President of Global 太子探花 Partnerships at Google, said in Friday鈥檚 blog post. 鈥淚f enacted, CJPA in its current form would create a level of business uncertainty that no company could accept.鈥�
Alphabet revenue of $307.4 billion in 2023.
Google passed in Canada in June 2023, writing at the time it would 鈥渞emove links to Canadian news from our Search, 太子探花 and Discover products in Canada.鈥� In November, the company said in an update it was working 鈥渢hrough the exemption process鈥� with the Canadian government and would continue 鈥渟ending valuable traffic to Canadian publishers鈥� while the details were ironed out.
Google told CNN in a statement Saturday that it was still working through the exemption process, but has finalized its agreement with the Canadian government. The law is set to be enacted in June.
The company had a similar reaction to a 2021 Australian law that would require platforms to compensate Australian news outlets for using their content. In January 2021, a few months before the law was passed, Google , 鈥�(if) the Code were to become law in its current form, we would have no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia.鈥�
Google eventually reached 鈥渧oluntary commercial agreements with a significant number of news media organizations,鈥� according to the , which authored the legislation. Google said at the time it would instead of paying them for links.
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