France’s competition authority issued a ruling requesting Google to start good faith negotiations with press publishers on the remuneration for the re-use of their protected contents on its news and search pages. In November, the watchdog received a complaint from representatives of the press sector, including trade unions and news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), which accused Google of disregarding legislation transposing the latest EU copyright directive into French law. This follows Google’s response to the new rules at the end of September, when the company announced that it would stop showing snippets of news articles on its news and search pages in France.
The regulator ordered Google to conduct negotiations within three months of receiving a request to open remuneration talks from a press publisher or news agency. The injunction is described by the competition authority as an interim measure to protect the complainants from potentially abusive practices, pending its final decision on the merits of the case.
While the investigation continues, the watchdog said that the charges against Google are likely to be qualified as abuse of dominant position on several grounds. In particular, the probe will assess accusations of unfair trading conditions, circumvention of the law, and discriminatory practices.
Justifying the urgency of its action, the regulator highlighted that Google’s policies are causing serious harm to the press sector, while the copyright law in question aims instead at improving the remuneration they derive from protected content.
