French regulators announced on Wednesday that they were imposing a fine of 250 million euros ($272 million) on Google for violating commitments related to compensating media organizations for the use of their content online and for utilizing their material in its AI chatbot without proper notification.
This penalty comes after Google had made pledges in 2022 to engage in fair negotiations with French news entities, following a 500-million-euro fine issued by the Competition Authority in response to a longstanding dispute.
In 2019, organizations representing French newspapers, magazines, and Agence France-Presse (AFP) filed a complaint with the regulator. As part of its commitments, Google was obligated to present news groups with a transparent payment offer within three months of receiving a copyright complaint.
However, the regulator stated that Google failed to uphold these commitments and negotiate in good faith with news publishers. Furthermore, Google utilized content from press agencies to train its artificial intelligence platform, Bard (now known as Gemini), without informing them or the authority.
Google neglected to provide publishers and news agencies with a technical solution allowing them to object to the use of their content, which hindered their ability to negotiate compensation. Despite agreeing to not dispute the facts, Google deemed the fine disproportionate, emphasizing its efforts to address concerns raised.
The EU introduced neighboring rights in 2019, granting print media the right to demand compensation for the use of their content. France has been a pivotal battleground for these rules, with Google and Facebook eventually agreeing to pay French media for content displayed in web searches.
Similarly, other EU countries have confronted Google over news content issues. Spain’s competition watchdog initiated an investigation, while Germany’s antitrust regulator halted a probe into Google’s News Showcase service after adjustments were made to ease competition concerns.
The Autorité de la Concurrence in France imposed a €250 million fine on Google for disregarding commitments with news publishers and for utilizing their content to train its AI model Bard/Gemini. Despite Google’s arguments about the use of web content for AI improvement being addressed in EU copyright law, the competition authority found Google in breach of its commitments by failing to inform publishers about the use of their content.
Moreover, Google faced criticism for failing to provide a technical solution allowing publishers to opt out of content usage for AI training without affecting their content display on other Google services. The authority also highlighted Google’s opaque methodology for calculating payments to publishers and its failure to meet non-discrimination criteria.
Overall, the fine underscores the ongoing challenges between tech giants and regulatory bodies regarding copyright protection and fair compensation for content creators.
