On Tuesday, Chamber of Progress released new research on the impact of link tax legislation in advance of a hearing on the California Journalism Preservation Act. The new research, by the organization’s Senior Economist Kaitlyn Harger, examines for the first time the impact of similar legislation that passed in Canada – which caused online platforms to remove news links from their sites, harming small publishers.

Read the full analysis: 

California’s News Link Tax Now Resembles Canada’s,
Which Has Resulted in Lost News Traffic & Revenue.

The study, which examines the fallout from Canada’s link tax for the country’s 100 top news outlets, finds that: 

• Canada’s similar law offers the best predictor of the impact of the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA).
• After Canada’s law was implemented, news sites lost at least 120 million visits annually.
• On average, each individual Canadian news site lost 1.2 million clicks annually.
• On average, Canadian news outlets lost $156,000 each in annual traffic value – but are projected to gain only $63,000 each in annual benefits under the law.
• Most Canadian news outlets will lose more than they gain.

“The fallout from Canada’s news link tax should be a flashing warning sign for California,” said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich. “It’s now clear that Canada’s news link tax led to a net loss of traffic and revenue for news publications, and CJPA would cause the same result in California. There are lots of ways to support local journalism that don’t tax the sharing of online news stories.”

###

Chamber of Progress (progresschamber.org) is a center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future.  We work to ensure that all Americans benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly.  

Our corporate partners do not have a vote on or veto over our positions. We do not speak for individual partner companies and remain true to our stated principles even when our partners disagree.