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France Forces Google to Pay for the Republication of News

The French competition authority instructs Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to pay publishers and news media for publishing copy on Google.

 

Alphabet has three months to conclude fee agreements with French news media companies.

Google has been publishing extracts of news items on its news service for years without paying the creators for it.

In this way, Google may be abusing its position as a market leader, causing the news media to cause “serious and acute damage”, the French competition watchdog said Thursday. The decision of the AutoritĂ© de la concurrence puts an end to Google’s practices in France.

The French competition authority has long been targeting American tech companies. Apple was fined $ 1.1 billion last month for cartel agreements with two distributors for selling Apple Mac computers, among others.

European media companies have long been pushing for action against Google by various authorities because Google’s policies cost them billions of euros in advertising benefits. The French competition watchdog’s decision is the first success in that campaign.

EU authorities have so far failed to compel Google to put an end to its practices. The complaints against Google were filed in November by partnerships of media companies and press organizations and the French news agency AFP.

Google says it will accept the decision and says it is negotiating with the relevant media companies. “When new European copyright legislation came into force last year, we are in talks with publishers to expand our support for and investment in news,” said Google director Richard Gingras.

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