The federal government and tech giant Google have an agreement over the Online News Act.

 

Ottawa has agreed to set a $100-million yearly ceiling on payments Google will be required to make to media companies once the Act takes effect at year’s end.

That law will compel tech companies to enter into agreements with news publishers to pay them for the news that appears on their sites, if the content contributes to revenues.

The $100-million is what Google said it figured it would pay, and the amount is 41% lower than would have been required under a formula in the Trudeau Liberals draft regulations.

Google had threatened to block Canadian news content on its platforms but didn’t.

This development could see Meta and the government resume talks that ended in the summer and saw Meta stop posting Canadian news on Instagram and Facebook.