The French competition authority has imposed a record fine of 500 million euros on Google: according to the Authority, the American giant of technology he would not negotiate “in good faith” with the publishers with respect to the application of the so-called rights related to the use of news in search results.
Not only that: Google will also have to “submit a remuneration offer for the current use of protected content” of publishers and news agencies, if it does not want to suffer other penalties of this magnitude, from a minimum of 300 thousand “up to a maximum of 900 thousand euros per day “for each day of delay.
He postpones
Less Facebook, more TikTok and YouTube: this is how the way we read news has changed
by Emanuele Capone
The reasons for the sanction
This fine is the first of its kind in Europe: “It is the most substantial fine” imposed for non-compliance with the decisions of an Authority, said the president of the French Antitrust, Isabelle De Silva, adding that “we wanted highlight the seriousness “of Google’s failings with respect to its obligations. According to De Silva, the Mountain View company “does not yet seem to accept the law” on related rights, and yet “it is not up to an operator to reform the law”.
The decision is the first of its kind following the entry into force in 2019 of the new European legislation on related rights, which France adopted first: the clash concerns, in particular, the rights that Google should pay to publishers for the content press, excerpts from articles, photos, videos and infographics that it uses in its applications.
The draft
Artificial intelligence, the first EU stakes against surveillance and mass manipulation
by Alessandro Longo
What Google said after the fine
According to Big G, the fine would not reflect the “efforts put in place” to arrive at a solution: “We are very disappointed with this decision” because “we acted in good faith throughout the process – said a company spokesman -. The fine ignores our efforts to reach an agreement and ignores the reality of how news works on our platforms. To date, Google is the only company to have announced related rights agreements. We are also about to finalize an agreement with France Presse which includes a global licensing agreement, as well as the remuneration of related rights for their journalistic publications “.
.