Google was recently handed a hefty fine by the French courts. The search engine’s crime? Failing to negotiate payments in good faith with news publishers within the country.
According to reports, the Alphabet-owned brand was slapped with a €500 million (~RM2.48 billion) fine, after it was deemed that the company failed to come to terms with news publishers, over how they would split the profits and revenue earned from sales. The fine marks the second time French authorities take on a major tech giant with fines over monopolistic practices, the other tech giant unsurprisingly being Apple.
It may not come as a surprise, but this isn’t the first time Google has been dealt with fines over anti-competitive practices, or even gotten into legal trouble. Back in December 2020, the search engine was handed two antitrust lawsuits in the US, both within a span of 24 hours. Then, at the start of the year, the company got into a row with the Australian government after the latter threatened to either block or limit the search engine’s service within the country. After it tried enacting a law that would require search engines to pay for linking news articles in its service.
In light of the fine, the French courts also told Google that it must come up with proposals over how it plans on compensating French publishers and news agencies, all within the next two months or risk being fined up to €900000 (~RM4.5 million) a day until an agreement has been made.
