France fines Google 250 million euros – 03/20/2024 – Market

The French competition defense authority announced this Wednesday a fine of 250 million euros (1.36 billion reais) to Google for failing to comply with an agreement that obliges the company to pay media outlets for using its content on the internet. .

In a statement, the agency justifies the fine by alleging “non-compliance with some of its commitments made in June 2022” with regard to related rights, derived from copyright.

The French authority criticizes the American group for “not having respected four of the seven commitments” and, in particular, for “not having negotiated in good faith” with the press to evaluate remuneration based on rights.

It also highlighted that the American group used “content from publications and news agencies” without alerting them, with the aim of enabling its Bard artificial intelligence application, currently called Gemini.

The American company considered the fine “disproportionate”.

“We made a commitment because it is time to turn the page and, as our many agreements with publishers prove, we wish (…) to work constructively with French publishers,” Google said in a statement.

“We consider that the value of the fine is disproportionate in relation to the infractions detected”, adds the group.

Neighboring rights were established in 2019 by a European directive and allow newspapers, magazines or news agencies to receive payments when their content is used in search engines such as Google, which displays excerpts from press news on results pages.

At the end of 2021, AFP signed a related rights agreement with Google, which pays the agency for five years for content offered on the internet by the American group.