Google has been slapped with the latest fine of 500 million euro ($593 million) fine by France’s antitrust watchdog. The fine was put on Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) on Tuesday for the reason of failing to comply with the regulator’s orders on how to conduct talks with the country’s news publishers over some copyright.
This fine is imposed on the search engine giant comes amidst increasing international pressure on online platforms such as Google and Facebook (FB.O) for them to share more revenue with the news outlets on their platform.
Google and Facebook were required to come up with proposals within the next two months and they have to decide on how to compensate news agencies and other publishers for their news. However, if the tech companies failed to comply with these regulations then they would face additional fines of up to 900,000 euros per day.
However, Google was not happy with this development. Its spokesperson has this to say, “Our objective remains the same: we want to turn the page with a definitive agreement. We will consider the French Competition Authority’s feedback and adapt our offers, We have acted in good faith throughout the entire process. The fine ignore our efforts to reach an agreement, and the reality of how news works on our platforms.”
The news publishers like APIG, SEPM, and AFP stated that they have failed to hold talks in good faith with U.S tech companies. And they have failed to find any common ground for the remuneration of news content online.
It’s also reported that Google has agreed to pay $76 million over three years to a group of 121 French news publishers to end the copyright row. However, the company also has failed to find any common ground with the news services.
