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Google starts removing links to California news outlets ahead of proposed bill

Google doesn't want to pay the "journalism usage fee" that would be required by California's Journalism Preservation Act.

While lawmakers ponder the making of the proposed Journalism Preservation Act law, Google is previewing the consequences of that decision in a limited test. "If passed, CJPA may result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers," said Jaffer Zaidi, Google's vice president of Global News Partnerships. Essentially, instead of paying publishers for their content as would be required by the JCPA, Google plans to stop linking to news sites that would be covered by the law.

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