The French Antitrust fined Alphabet and Google 250 million euros for failing to meet the commitments made in 2022 on the fair remuneration of publishers for the use of their content and for using the same to operate its artificial intelligence service (Bard, later renamed Gemini) without informing newspapers and news agencies.
In 2022, Google committed to the French Antitrust to negotiate the fee for the use of content in good faith, after receiving a fine of 500 million in 2021 for failing to guarantee publishers fair compensation, as required by the legislation on copyright and related rights adopted by France in implementation of the European Copyright Directive.
The Mountain View giant is accused of "having violated its commitment to collaborate with the monitor trustee" responsible for monitoring the implementation of the commitments and of "not having respected four of the seven commitments", which were to ensure the implementation of a series of principles: that of "negotiating within three months" with publishers "in good faith, on the basis of transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria", that of providing publishers "with the information necessary to transparently evaluate their remuneration for related rights" and to "adopt the necessary measures so that the negotiations do not jeopardize other economic relationships between Google and news agencies and publishers", we read in the authority's decision.
Regarding AI, Google did not propose to publishers "a technical solution that would allow news agencies and publishers to opt out of the use of their content by Bard without compromising the display of content protected by related rights on other services Google, thereby hindering the ability of news agencies and publishers to negotiate remuneration."
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