Google announced Friday it would remove links to California news sites from its search results for some users as it continues to push back against a pending state bill that would require the company to pay publishers.
In a blog post published Friday, the search giant said the bill, officially known as the California Journalism Preservation Act, would change the company’s business model.
If signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the bill would require tech companies like Google to pay news outlets a “journalism usage fee” when they sell advertising alongside news content.
“We have long said this is the wrong approach to supporting journalism. If passed, CJPA may result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers,” Jaffer Zaidi, vice president of Global News Partnerships at Google, said in the post.
The company also announced that it is “pausing further investments in the California news ecosystem, including new partnerships through Google News Showcase, our product and licensing program for news organizations, and planned expansions of the Google News Initiative.”
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