PARIS – France’s competition watchdog slapped Google with a €500 million (RM2.4 billion) fine for failing to negotiate “in good faith” with media companies over the use of their content under European Union (EU) copyright rules.
It is “the biggest ever fine” imposed by the Competition Authority for a company’s failure to adhere to one of its rulings, said chief Isabelle De Silva, adding that the decision yesterday is intended to “reflect the gravity” of Google’s shortcomings.
The regulator also ordered the tech giant to present media publishers with “an offer of remuneration for the current use of their copyrighted content”, or risk paying additional damages of up to €900,000 a day.
A Google spokesman in a statement to AFP said the company is “very disappointed” by the decision.
“We have acted in good faith during the entire negotiation period. This fine does not reflect the efforts put in place or the reality of the use of news content on our platform,” insisted the company.
“This decision is mainly about negotiations that took place between May and September last year. Since then, we have continued to work with publishers and news agencies to find common ground.”
The long-running legal battle has centred on claims that Google has been showing articles, pictures and videos produced by media outlets when displaying search results without adequate compensation, despite the seismic shift of global advertising revenues towards the search giant.
In April last year, the French competition authority ordered Google to negotiate “in good faith” with media groups after it refused to comply with a 2019 EU law governing digital copyright.
The so-called “neighbouring rights” aim to ensure news publishers are compensated when their work is shown on websites, search engines and social media platforms.
But in September last year, French news publishers, including Agence France-Presse, filed a complaint with regulators, saying Google is refusing to move forward on paying to display content in web searches. – AFP, July 14, 2021
