France fines Google 250 million euros for using media content without authorization

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An organization in the European country alleges that the search giant has not been complying with agreements signed in 2019 to pay press outlets. In turn, the company says that the amount of the fine is ‘disproportionate’. France fines Google 250 million euros for using media content Andrew Kelly/Reuters/File The French competition authority announced this Wednesday (20) that it fined Google 250 million euros (R$1.36 billion) for failing to comply with an agreement that obliges the company to pay media outlets for using their content on the internet. In a statement, the search giant classified the fine as “disproportionate”. In a statement, the agency justifies the fine by alleging “non-compliance with some of its commitments made in June 2022” with regard to the rights of the press defined by the agency. They were established in 2019 by a European directive and allow newspapers, magazines or news agencies to receive payments when their content is used in online searches, such as Google, which displays excerpts from press reports on results pages. The French authority criticizes big tech for “not having respected four of the seven commitments” and, in particular, for “not having negotiated in good faith” with press publishers to assess remuneration based on rights. It also highlighted that the American group used “content from publishers and news agencies” without alerting them, with the aim of enabling its Bard artificial intelligence application, currently called Gemini. What Google says In a statement, Google stated that it considers the value of the fine to be “disproportionate” in relation to “the infractions” presented by the French authority. “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.

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