This week, Google was fined €500 million ($591 million) in France after it failed to comply with an order to negotiate a fair agreement on a revenue…
In brief: Google has been accused of not acting in good faith when asked to negotiate fair payment for using news snippets across Search and Google News. As a result, the French competition watchdog has fined the company to the tune of $591 million and will continue to fine them for every failure to negotiate deals with individual publishers within two months of receiving such requests. This week, Google was fined €500 million ($591 million) in France after it failed to comply with an order to negotiate a fair agreement on a revenue split with news publishers whose content is used on the Google News platform. It’s a significant blow for the search giant, and the second-biggest dealt by French authorities to any company. Back in 2020, the French competition watchdog used the pretext of the EU’s Copyright Directive — also referred to by some as the “Link Tax” — to force Google into paying publishers for the use of snippets or article previews across services like Search and Google News.
