France fines Google €500 million in copyright row

Paris, July 13: France's antitrust authority fined Google €500 million ($593 million) on Tuesday, saying the technology giant did not negotiate "in good faith" with news companies and other publishers over using their content.

Why was Google fined?

News publishers APIG, SEPM and AFP accuse Google of not having talks with them in good faith to compensate them for their online news on the tech giantꞌs feed.

They claimed the tech giant did not find enough common ground with them under the "neighboring rights" EU directive.

The French antitrust case looked at whether Google breached orders they had carried out asking for these talks to take place three months from when news publishers asked for them.

APIG, that represents newspapers like Le Figaro and Le Monde is one of the plaintiffs in the case, although they had a framework agreement already.

The news groups were waiting on this antitrust decision to proceed in their own case.

Source: DW