Tell Minister Guilbeault to kill the Link Tax NOW!

What could make 2020 worse? Heritage Minister Guilbeault breaking your Internet.

With his Link Tax proposal, Guilbeault is planning to give media giants the power to charge other websites fees for sharing links to their news articles.1,2 The Link Tax has already been a monumental flop in places like Spain, where the plan was so bad that Google News left entirely -- reducing web traffic and forcing many small news outlets to shut down.3

We can’t let this happen in Canada. If we act quickly, we can stop Guilbeault's reckless mission to table this proposal. Email Minister Guilbeault telling him to stop the Link Tax NOW!

Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage

Enter your details to begin writing your letter to the Minister asking him to drop the Link Tax.

Minister
Pablo
Rodriguez
Government of Canada

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Guilbeault seems to think he's striking back against "tech giants" with the Link Tax. But he's wrong; his misfire will decimate Canada's own news industry, and Facebook and Google won't feel a thing.

If the Link Tax makes Facebook or Google remove snippets — the preview text that makes readers want to click — or stop linking to news altogether, it will be Canada’s news organizations and small creators who suffer. In fact, that’s exactly what happened in Germany after implementing the Link Tax: Google stopped showing snippets alongside article links, which cut deeply into traffic to domestic news outlets.4 After Australia's Link Tax was introduced earlier this year, Facebook announced plans to stop linking to news on its platform entirely.5

A lot of people agree that tech giants have become too powerful — but legislation aimed at them needs to recognize the real-world consequences. The plan for the Link Tax ignores the reality that social media and search engines are where people access news content in the 21st century, and already drive a large share of revenue to those outlets. If Guilbeault is allowed to go forward with the Link Tax, Canadian news will be cut off from its audience both at home and abroad, while Facebook and Google carry on more dominant than ever.6

We need to stand up for Internet users and Canadian news organizations both large and small by stopping this plan. Tell Minister Guilbeault he needs to abandon the Link Tax NOW!

Sources

  1. Gov’t to introduce web giant, CanCon, news legislation in fall: Guilbeault - The Wire Report
  2. Heritage Minister promises upcoming reforms for web giants - MobileSyrup
  3. Google News Spain to be shut down: what does it mean? - The Guardian
  4. Google Removes News Snippets From Complaining Publications In Germany; Publications Claim It's 'Blackmail' - TechDirt
  5. Facebook says it doesn’t need news stories for its business and won’t pay to share them in Australia - The Guardian
  6. Study Of Spain's 'Google Tax' On News Shows How Much Damage It Has Done - TechDirt

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Press: Matt Hatfield | Phone: +1 (888) 441-2640 ext. 0  | [email protected]