Google settles dispute over news in France

PARIS: Google brought an end to a dispute with publishers and avoided further fines after winning regulatory approval for pledges that pave the way for payments for displaying snippets of their news articles on its platforms.

The French competition authority said Google significantly improved commitments it initially offered last year, which now address its concerns and have been made binding, ending the case.

The Alphabet Inc unit made promises last year in the wake of a €500 million ($527 million) fine for failing to follow an earlier order to thrash out fair deals with publishers.

The company also agreed to withdraw its challenge against the penalty.

Benoit Coeure, who heads the Autorite de la concurrence, told reporters at a Paris press conference yesterday that “this proves antitrust officials can wield the carrot and the stick.”

“For the first time in Europe, Google’s commitments provide a dynamic framework for negotiating and sharing information to transparently assess how much publishers are owed,’’ Coeure added.

He also highlighted that in case negotiations stumble, the matter would be brought in front of an arbitration court at Google’s cost.

Google struck successive deals in recent months with news service Agence France-Presse, a grouping of French newspapers including Le Monde and Le Figaro and a

separate group representing magazine publishers.

They filed complaints in France in 2019 following the entry into force of fresh copyright laws at European Union level saying they weren’t paid a fair price for using news content on its platform.

Google said in a blog post yesteray that it already has agreements with more than 150 publications to cover content that goes beyond links and short extracts and which it labels as extended news previews.

The company added that, outside of France, it has secured deals with more than 650 publications so far across the European Union.

France’s competition arm has kept a close eye on Silicon Valley firm in recent years.

In addition to the news case, Google last year agreed to pay a €220 million penalty to settle a probe into its power over online advertising and it got a €150 million fine in 2019 in a case focusing on its Google Ads platform.

The regulator’s record €1.1 billion fine was issued in 2020 against Apple Inc over anti-competitive agreements with two distributors.