C-18 Dispute Puts The Bulldog’s Future In Doubt

Google’s decision to pull its links on Canadian news would cut The Bulldog’s readership, based on today’s figures, by about 47 per cent.

At this point, The Bulldog does not know if it would be included in this ban or, for that matter, would it receive compensation if the federal government’s plan to charge Google and Facebook for every news link the two companies provide is implemented.

In other words, small publishers would be caught in a difficult place. On one hand, removing The Bulldog’s links would cut revenue markedly. On the other hand, were The Bulldog to be compensated for its links used by the tech giants, that could amount to some revenue, unknown at this point.

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All of this puts publishing in this country in limbo. If The Bulldog were not included in the tech company bans, the revenue and readership result would be a wash.

The action by the federal government through Bill C-18 and the tech giants threatened link ban have put news in this country in jeopardy.

And in fact, it places The Bulldog in question if implemented along with all the major media in this country. Big and small publishers could be hurt alike.

So the feds and big tech are playing chicken with this country’s news and putting The Bulldog’s future in doubt in the process.

All of this comes as The Bulldog joined Google News which has resulted in a significant increase in readership. But instead of a continuing huge gain in people reading this website, this dispute could devastate its readership.

A resolution of this dispute must come or news in this country could cease to exist in a meaningful way.

Ken Gray

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