France has fined Google 500 million euros for its copyright row

PARIS (Reuters) -The guardian against the French monopoly imposed a $ 500 million ($ 593 million) fine on Alphabet (NASDAQ 🙂 on Google on Tuesday for failing to comply with orders to follow regulations in the country’s news publishers. above copyright.

The fine comes amid international pressure on online platforms like Google and Facebook (NASDAQ 🙂 to sell with new revenue.

The U.S. tech team is due to make proposals over the next two months to find out how it would compensate news agencies and other publishers for using their news. Failure to do so would result in the company receiving additional fines of up to € 900,000 per day.

Google said it was very disappointed with the decision, but would comply.

“Our goal remains the same: we want to turn the page with a definitive agreement. We will take into account the opinion of the French Competition Authority and adapt our offers,” said the US technology giant.

A Google spokesman added: “We have acted in good faith throughout the process. The fine ignores our efforts to reach an agreement and how the news works on our platforms.”

The publishers of the new APIG, SEPM and AFP complain that the technology company did not have a good faith dialogue with them to find common ground for paying for the content of the new network, according to a recent EU directive that creates so-called “post-rights”.

The case itself examined whether Google had breached interim orders issued by the antitrust authority, and asked for these interviews with news publishers who requested them within three months.

“When the authority decrees an obligation for a company, it will have to fulfill it scrupulously, both in spirit and in letter (of the decision). Here, unfortunately, this did not happen,” said antitrust chief Isabelle de Silva. statement. He also said the regulator believed that Google had not acted in good faith in negotiations with publishers.

APIG, Le Figaro and Le Monde, which represent some of France’s leading paper publishers, remain one of the complainants, although it has signed a framework agreement with Google this year, sources told Reuters. That framework agreement was suspended until an antitrust decision was made, sources said.

The framework agreement, which was criticized by many other French media outlets, was one of the top offerings to compensate for parts of the news used in search results in Google’s “News Showcase” program, and the first of its kind in Europe.

Google agreed to pay $ 76 million a year to end a copyright queue on a group of 121 French publishers, documents seen by Reuters showed.

Negotiations between Google, French publishers and news agencies continued in the months leading up to the application of the revised EU copyright rules, which allowed publishers to apply for a fee for online platforms that display their news summaries.