France Rules Google Must Pay News Firms for Content
https://www.reuters.comThe French Competition Authority (FCA) has told Google to negotiate with French news companies to determine fees due for the re-use their content. In a statement, the FCA said, Google’s practices were “likely to constitute an abuse of a dominant position, and caused serious and immediate harm to the press sector.”
Some of you might remember that in 2014 Spain enforced something similar and Google decided to pull Google News from the country and publishers were not happy about the loss of traffic. Last September, Google said it would stop including snippets from French publishers in all Google services due to the Copyright Directive. The FCA has indicated that it considers the blanket refusal to compensate publishers an abuse of Google’s market dominance. So if Google fails to negotiate in good faith, further sanctions may be forthcoming.
The ruling gives Google three months to come to reach an acceptable price with French publishers for using snippets of their articles in Google News, Google Search, and other services.
