France’s competition watchdog on Tuesday slapped Google with a 500-million-euro ($593-million) fine for failing to negotiate “in good faith” with media companies over the use of their content under 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, the agency’s chief Isabelle De Silva told reporters, saying the decision was intended to “reflect the gravity” of Google’s shortcomings.
The regulator also ordered Google to present media publishers with “an offer of renumeration for the current use of their copyrighted content”, or risk paying additional damages of up to 900,000 euros a day.
A Google spokesperson said in a statement to AFP that the company was “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, nor the reality of the use of news content on our platform,” the company insisted.
“This decision is mainly about negotiations that took place between May and September 2020. 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 2020, 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 that news publishers are compensated when their work is shown on websites, search engines and social media platforms.
But last September, French news publishers including Agence France-Presse (AFP) filed a complaint with regulators, saying Google was refusing to move forward on paying to display content in web searches.
– ‘
DISCLAIMER
The OPINION / COLUMN is authored by independent contributors to the National Accord Newspaper. While contributors adhere to our editorial guidelines, they are not employed by the National Accord Newspaper. The perspectives and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of the National Accord Newspaper or its staff.