France has decided to fine Google 500 million euros ($593 million), after it failed to strike a fair deal with publishers to use their news content on its platform.
Wogfa to Arabia Net, Google's owner Alphabet Inc ignored a 2020 decision to negotiate in good faith to display excerpts of articles on the Google News service.
Isabelle de Silva, president of Agence France-Presse, said that the 500 million euro penalty took into account the exceptional seriousness of the violations noted and the further increase in Google's behavior. Delays in the proper application of the law, according to Bloomberg.
The confrontation between Google and owners of journalism and news services has been raging for a long time. European publishers have been paying regulators for more than a decade to deal with the dominance of Google, which has drawn in billions of euros in advertising revenue. Complaints were lodged in France in 2019 by groups representing newspapers and magazines as well as Agence France-Presse.
Tuesday's fine is the latest show of force by the French regulator, as France competes with its European Union counterparts led by Germany to be the region's strongest watchdog for US technology companies. .
