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The Google logo displayed on a smartphone with the front pages of several newspapers in the background.
Hakan Nural | Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
LONDON – Google was fined € 500m ($ 593m) on Tuesday by French competition regulators for failing to comply with an order to negotiate fair deals with news publishers for the use of their content.
The French Competition Authority said Google had violated an April 2020 ruling, which ordered the company to negotiate “good faith” licensing deals with publishers and news agencies for any reuse of copyrighted content. by copyright.
In January, Google struck a major digital copyright deal with French publishers. As part of the deal, the company said it will negotiate individual licenses with members of the French press alliance covering related rights and access to a new service called News Showcase.
The French competition authority opposed this, saying it did not include a discussion of remuneration for current uses of content covered by “neighboring rights” for the press. The regulator added that Google has restricted the scope of discussions with the media by refusing to include the use of press images.
This is the biggest fine ever imposed by the French competition supervisory authority for a company’s failure to comply with one of its decisions, according to France 24.
Google has been ordered by the regulator to present an offer of remuneration for the use of protected content to publishers within two months, under penalty of fines of up to 900,000 euros per day.
Google said it was “very disappointed” with Tuesday’s decision.
“We have acted in good faith throughout the process,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC. “The fine ignores our efforts to reach an agreement and the reality of how information works on our platforms.”
“To date, Google is the only company to have announced neighboring rights agreements,” added the spokesperson. “We are also on the verge of finalizing an agreement with AFP which includes a global license agreement, as well as the remuneration of their neighboring rights for their press publications.”
The record fine is the latest development in an ongoing copyright battle between tech giants like Google and Facebook and news publishers.
France was the first country to pass controversial new EU copyright laws aimed at giving news organizations more protections to ensure they are paid fairly for disseminating material from their content online.
France is not the only country to criticize Google on the remuneration of news organizations. Last year Australia demanded that Google and Facebook pay the media for the right to present their stories. Facebook initially refused, at one point preventing Australians from viewing or sharing news content, before later reaching a deal with the government.
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