Google’s Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) has been slapped with a whopping 500 million euros fine by France’s antitrust regulator for failing to fully abide by temporary orders issued by the regulator in accordance with the country’s publishers.
According to a press release by the regulator, within the next 60 days, Google must come up with proposals on how it will compensate news agencies and other publishers in the country for using their news materials or else it will face extra fines of up to 900,000 euros per day.
“We have acted in good faith throughout the entire process. The fine ignores our efforts to reach an agreement, and the reality of how news works on our platforms. To date, Google is the only company to have announced agreements on neighboring rights,” said Google in response to this development.
Several news publishers among them AFP, APIG and SEPM have been accusing the search giant of failing to open talks in good faith with them so as to find a consensus on the matter touching on remuneration of news content online.
This case has been focusing on if Google breached temporary orders which had been issued by the regulator ordering the negotiations talks between the tech firm and the publishers to take place within three months.
“When the authority decrees an obligation for a company, it must comply scrupulously, both in the spirit and letter of the decision. Here, this was unfortunately not the case,” said the regulator.
