A fine of 500 million euros was imposed today on Google of Alphabet by the competition authorities in France. The fine comes at a time when international pressure is mounting on online platforms such as Google and Facebook to share more revenue with the media.
The technology giant is accused of not fully complying with temporary orders given by the French authorities in the context of the company’s dispute with the country’s news organizations.
Google announced that it is very unhappy with this decision, but will comply.
“Our goal remains the same: we want to turn the page with a final agreement. “We will take into account the remarks of the French Competition Authority and we will adjust our offers”, he noted.
“We acted in good faith throughout the process. “The fine ignores our efforts to reach an agreement and the reality of how the news works on our platforms,” ​​a spokeswoman added.
News agencies APIG, SEPM and AFP accuse Google of failing to conduct good faith talks with them to find common ground for the remuneration of news content on the internet, under a recent EU directive creating so-called “related rights”.
This case focuses on whether Google violated interim orders issued by the French antitrust authority, which claimed to have such conversations within three months with any news organization requesting it.
“When the authority issues an order that a company has an obligation, it (the company) must meticulously comply with both the spirit and the letter (of the decision). Unfortunately, this did not happen here “, notes the head of the French Competition Authority Isabelle de Silva in a statement. She added that regulators believe that Google has not acted in good faith in its negotiations with news organizations.
APIG, which represents most of the major news organizations (Le Figaro, Le Monde, etc.), remains one of those who have appealed, despite signing a framework agreement, as it has been on hold for a long time pending the decision of the protection authority. competition, according to sources cited by Reuters.
The framework agreement, which was criticized by many other French news networks, was one of the most prominent agreements under its program. Google “News Showcase” for compensation for news clips used in search results, and the first of its kind in Europe.
Google has agreed to pay $ 76 million over a three-year period to a team of 121 French journalists to end the copyright dispute, according to documents accessed by Reuters, according to the Athens News Agency.
It came after months of negotiations between Google, French news agencies and news agencies on how to implement amended EU copyright rules that allow journalists to claim payment from online platforms that upload of their news.
Google and AFP are also “close to reaching an agreement,” AFP CEO Fabrice Fries and Google France CEO Sebastian Misof said in a joint statement shared by AFP.
On June 7, a decision by the French authority in another area, that of online advertising – with a fine of 220 million euros – led Google to reform a number of its practices worldwide.
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