[gspencley]

A couple things of note:

1. Meta was the other "initial target." And so if we're in a mindset where we just dislike Google or "big powerful corporations that will stop at no end to ... whatever" then the application of the bill ALREADY hit a point where we can start to see how loosely the regulators will interpret Section 6. And according to the wording of that section, they just need to consider the "size" of the entity,"strategic advantage", and "prominent market position" in order to determine if they decide that the digital news intermediary has "a significant bargaining power imbalance."

2. With respects to what you think Google might do in order to try and "work around the law" ... I'm not a lawyer, but from what I've heard from lawyers, courts tend to be very intolerant towards people who try and apply a strict interpretation of the wording of a law in order to try and skirt around what it makes illegal. Common law, precedence and judicial interpretation really exists in large part to try and avoid that type of thing. Judges will look at things like the intent of the legislators, past court decisions and the intent of the accused in order to determine whether the accused is in violation.

In other words, Section 4 "Purpose", would be considered:

> Purpose 4 The purpose of this Act is to regulate digital news intermediaries with a view to enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contributing to its sustainability, including the sustainability of news businesses in Canada, in both the non-profit and for-profits sectors, including independent local ones.

As well as Google's intent. If the court were to gather that Google's intent was to try and work around the law, they go back to the Purpose, look at Google's actions and the EFFECT of their actions and will say "Sorry, you don't get to do shit like that to try and weasel your way out of the law. It still applies." And those types of actions can often be used as evidence of an intent to break the law, so any lawyer would likely advise their client to not even consider doing slimy shit like that.

[SiempreViernes]

Ah, its a good point that the main target is the even more bad faith actor in the form of Facebook! Even more reason the technical criteria has to be broad.

I am however confused why you think the law being applied to the company having 91% of search in Canada is mission creep, you never actually say why claiming that Google has a "a significant bargaining power imbalance" is "loosely" interpreting the criteria....

And sure, the state might have a good chance of winning the court case about Google and Meta trying to avoid the law by not technically delivering the snippets themselves, but it'll take years for sure to go trough the courts. And why would you accept those several years where the damage the law is trying to prevent continues because you wanted the technical definitions to be narrow as when you already had criteria on company size.

[gspencley]

> I am however confused why you think the law being applied to the company having 91% of search in Canada is mission creep, you never actually say why claiming that Google has a "a significant bargaining power imbalance" is "loosely" interpreting the criteria....

I think you misunderstood my point.

I'm not talking about applying the law to Google, specifically. I'm not even saying that the government & regulators are "loosely interpreting the law." I'm saying that the criteria, as set out in Section 6 is itself intentionally loose to the point where it gives broad, sweeping and arguably arbitrary power to the regulators in order to decide who qualifies and why. That, if challenged in court, they only have to argue that a "significant bargaining power imbalance" exists because of some degree of consideration to "size" of the target, "prominent market position" and "strategic advantage." If that's not extremely broad and sweeping, I don't know what is.

Personally, I don't want my government and it's regulatory agencies having that type of unconstrained broad discretion. It allows them to:

- selectively target certain entities over others

- while in doing so, has the potential to create an unfair market environment while claiming that their goals are to achieve fairness

- it gives them a very broad paintbrush with which to select these entities

In your follow-up point about legal cases and years and cost of going through the court system .. if any target of this law wanted to challenge being targeted by the CRTC ... that's the exact type of lengthy and costly legal process that they would have to go through in suing the CRTC for exemption. It would be incredibly costly for the entity targeted, while having virtually zero consequences for the CRTC and the government if the courts were to rule in the entity's favour.

Just imagine how open to corruption this law is. The CRTC can "punish" certain entities while giving "favours" to others by choosing to leave them be and not target them.