France’s antitrust watchdog has fined Alphabet EUR 500 million (about Rs 3,727 crore) Google on Tuesday for failing to comply with a regulator’s orders on how to continue to negotiate with the country’s news publishers over copyright. Google and . This fine has been imposed amid increasing international pressure on online platforms like Facebook To share more revenue with news outlets. The US tech group must now come up with proposals within the next two months for how it will compensate news agencies and other publishers for their use of news stories. If it does not do so, the company will have to pay an additional fine of up to 900,000 euros (about Rs 6.7 crore) per day. Google said it was disappointed with the decision but would follow it.
“Our objective is the same: we want to turn the page with a definitive agreement. We will take into account the response of the French Competition Authority and adapt our proposals.” A Google spokesperson said: “We have acted in good faith throughout the process. The fines ignore our efforts to reach an agreement, and the reality of how news works on our platform.” News publishers APIG, SEPM and AFP accused the tech company of failing to negotiate in good faith with them to find common ground for remuneration for news content under a recent European Union directive, the so-called Creates “neighboring rights”.
The case focused on whether Google violated provisional orders issued by the antitrust authority, which demand that such talks be held within three months with any news publishers seeking them. “When the authority decides an obligation to a company, it must comply faithfully, both in spirit and in letter (of the decision). Here, unfortunately this was not the case,” said the head of the antitrust body, Isabel de Silva. said in the statement. He also said that the regulator recognized that Google had not acted in good faith in its negotiations with publishers.
APIG, which represents most of the major French print news publishers including Le Figaro and Le Monde, remains one of the plaintiffs, even though it signed a framework agreement with Google earlier this year, sources told Reuters. Told. Sources said the deal for this framework has been kept pending a no-confidence decision. read more
The framework agreement, which was criticized by many other French media outlets, was one of the highest-profile deals under Google’s “News Showcase” program, which provides compensation for news snippets used in search results and the first of its kind in Europe. is.
Google has agreed to pay $76 million (about Rs 566 crore) over three years to a group of 121 French news publishers to end a copyright row, documents seen by Reuters showed.
It followed months of bargaining between Google, French publishers and news agencies over how to implement revised EU copyright rules that allow publishers to demand a fee from online platforms showing excerpts of their news.
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