PARIS: A French antitrust regulator fined Google 500 million euros ($593 million) on Tuesday for not complying with its orders about how to speak to France’s news publishers in a dispute over copyright.
Fines come amid growing international pressure on online platforms like Google and Facebook to share more revenue with news outlets.
In the next two months, the US tech group must come up with proposals on how it will compensate news agencies and other publishers. Unless it does that, it would face fines as high as 900,000 euro a day.
Google said it was disappointing, but it would comply with the decision. ‘Our objective is the same: we want a firm agreement to end this process. We will adapt our offers in response to the French Competition Authority’s feedback,’ the US tech giant said.
A Google spokesperson said: ‘We have acted in good faith throughout the entire process. This fine ignores our efforts to reach an agreement, as well as the reality of how news works on our platforms.’
APIG, SEPM and AFP say Google has failed to engage in good faith discussions with them to find a common ground for the remuneration of news content online, under a recent European Union directive that creates ‘neighboring rights.’
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This case focused on whether Google violated temporary orders issued by the antitrust authority, which required such talks to take place within three months with news publishers that asked for them.
‘When the authority decrees an obligation for a company, it must comply both in spirit and in letter (of the decision). It was not the case here,’ said the antitrust body’s chief, Isabelle de Silva, in a statement. In addition, she said the regulator believed that Google had not acted in good faith in its negotiations with publishers.
APIG, which represents most major French print news publishers including Le Figaro and Le Monde, remains among the plaintiffs despite signing a framework agreement with Google earlier this year, sources told the media. Sources said the framework agreement has been put on hold pending the antitrust decision.
One of the most high-profile deals under Google’s ‘News Showcase’ program to compensate news snippets displayed in search results, and the first of its kind in Europe, was the framework agreement that many French media outlets criticized.
In documents presented by the media, Google agreed to pay $76 million over three years to 121 French news publishers to end the copyright dispute.
The move comes after months of negotiations between Google, French publishers and news agencies over how to implement the revamped EU copyright rules, which allow publishers to charge platforms for showing excerpts of their news.
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