France's competition watchdog has inflicted a EUR 500 million fine on Google, after the company failed to comply in full with the ruling issued in April 2020, dictating "good faith negotiations" with press publishers over remuneration for distributing their texts online. Representatives of the press sector had accused Google of disregarding legislation transposing the latest EU copyright directive into French law, under which they expect remuneration for the re-use of their protected content on Google's news and search pages.
The competition authority found that several obligations in its April 2020 ruling had not been implemented. Among them, the watchdog noted Google's refusal to engage in good faith negotiations with stakeholders beyond the group represented by press association APIG (Alliance de la Presse d'Information Generale).
The watchdog has given Google two months to ensure full compliance, saying that the company could face a sanction of EUR 900,000 for each day that it delays the full application of the ruling.
