The French competition authority has imposed a fine of 500 million euros (592 million dollars) to Google, for not having negotiated "good faith" the application of the so-called related rights, the remuneration to the press editors by the Use of its contents.
The Gendar Me Competition also ordered Google to "present an offer of remuneration for the current use of their protected content" to publishers and press agencies, since otherwise it may be the subject of fines of up to 900,000 euros (1 , 06 million dollars) per day of delay ".
"It is the highest fine" imposed by this French organization, not to respect one of its decisions, the president of the competition authority, Isabelle de Silva said.
"We are very disappointed by this decision because we act in good faith during all the negotiations. This fine does not reflect the efforts that have been made or the reality of the use of current content on our platform," a Google spokesman reacted in a message .
"This decision focuses on the negotiations that took place between May and September 2020. Since then, we have continued working with the press editors to achieve an understanding," according to Google.
The conflict between Google and the French press editors lies in the rights that the US company must pay for the contents (fragments of articles, photos, videos, infographics) that appear on the results pages when the Internet trading performs a search.
At first Google was reluctant to these "rights related to copyright" and tried to force publishers to give birth to the right to use their content for free.
The search engine estimated that the editors already charged enough for the traffic that generated towards their web pages.
Given Google's rejection to negotiate a remuneration, press editors and news agencies, such as France-Presse Agency (AFP), resorted to the competition authority at the end of 2019 by "dominant position abuse".
In April 2020, the Authority imposed "emergency measures" to Google, that is, the obligation to negotiate "in good faith" a retribution to the press editors.
In September of last year, press editors and AFP resorted to the competition authority again to consider that Google was not respecting its obligations.
Date Of Update: 25 July 2021, 07:06
