France fines Google €500m in copyright infringement case
France's antitrust watchdog fined Google €500m on Tuesday for failing to comply fully with temporary orders it had given to the company over a case involving national news publishers.
GOOGLE-C
$159.92
13:09 23/04/24
Nasdaq 100
17,471.47
12:15 23/04/24
The US tech giant must still come up with proposals within the next two months on how to compensate news agencies for using their content.
If it fails to do so, Google could face additional fines of up to €900,000 euros per day.
News publishers APIG, SEPM and AFP accused the tech giant of having failed to open talks in good faith with them to find common ground for the remuneration of news content online.
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.”