It was a long-awaited decision. The French gendarme of the competition imposed, Tuesday, July 13, a fine of 500 million euros on Google for not having negotiated ” in good faith “ with press publishers on the application of neighboring rights, the remuneration due to publishers for the resumption of their content.
“The heaviest fine” ever imposed by the Authority
The Competition Authority has also ordered Google to “Present an offer of remuneration for the current uses of their protected content” to publishers and press agencies, under penalty “To be subject to periodic penalty payments of up to 900,000 euros per day of delay”. “It is the highest fine” never inflicted by the Competition Authority for non-compliance with one of its decisions, declared its president, Isabelle de Silva.
“We wanted to mark the gravity” Google’s breaches of its obligations, justified Mr.me From Silva. Google don’t “Still does not seem to accept the law” creating neighboring rights, or “It is not for an operator to refuse the law”, she said.
The American company said ” very disapointed “ by this decision. “We acted in good faith throughout the negotiation period. This fine does not reflect the efforts put in place, nor the reality of the use of news content on our platform ”, said a spokesperson for Agence France-Presse (AFP).
But, for the Competition Authority, “Google’s behavior is the result of a deliberate, elaborate and systematic strategy of non-compliance” of the injunction to negotiate in good faith, she justified in a press release. For example, “Google’s negotiations with publishers and news agencies cannot be regarded as having been conducted in good faith”.
The conflict between Google and French press publishers affects the rights that Google must pay for press content – extracts from articles, photos, videos, infographics, etc. – which appear in the results pages when searching for the internet user. Google, hostile to the principle of these “rights related to copyright”, first tried to force publishers to grant it the right to use this content free of charge. The search engine felt that publishers were paid quite enough for the traffic they sent to their sites.
“Google has restricted the scope of negotiation without justification”
Faced with Google’s refusal to negotiate remuneration, publishers and press agencies – Syndicate of press editors of the magazine press, Alliance of the press of general information (APIG), AFP – seized the Authority of the competition at the end of 2019 for ” abuse of dominant position “. In April 2020, the authority imposed “Emergency measures” to Google, or an obligation to negotiate remuneration “in good faith” with press editors. Press editors and AFP seized the Competition Authority in September 2020, believing that Google was not respecting its obligations.
It is on compliance with this obligation that the Competition Authority has ruled. On the merits, the Authority reproaches Google in particular for having tried to place the negotiations on the ground of Google Showcase, a new service offered by Google, by refusing “To have a specific discussion” on neighboring rights, a concept created by a European directive of 2019. In anticipation of the decision, the company now separates them in its recent discussions with publishers, which will allow them to assess neighboring rights as such.
“In addition, Google has restricted the scope of the negotiation without justification, by refusing to include the content of the press agencies taken up by publications (images, for example) and by excluding all the non-IPG press. [presse d’information politique et générale] “ discussion, noted Mr.me by Silva. This approach excluded sports information media such as The team, or women’s press, entertainment …
The authority also accuses Google of not having communicated to publishers and news agencies “The information necessary for a transparent assessment of the remuneration due”. The company limited itself to providing information on “Direct advertising revenue generated” by search engine service “To the exclusion of all income, in particular indirect, linked to the use of this content”, argued the authority, giving the example of research done by Internet users on other topics related to current information.
The American giant, however, has changed its posture since the start of the case and, after complaints lodged with the Competition Authority, entered into agreements with several media at the end of 2020 (including Le Figaro, Le Monde, Liberation, L’Express, L’Obs), then, in mid-January 2021, signed a framework agreement with APIG, which notably represents national and regional dailies.
This Tuesday, Google and AFP are now “Close to reaching an agreement” on the issue of neighboring rights, announced the CEO of AFP, Fabrice Fries, and the director general of Google France, Sébastien Missoffe, in statements jointly transmitted to AFP – the contents of the agencies are taken up by the media but rarely published directly.
The authority’s decision will be closely observed in France and beyond its borders, because it is the first decision of a regulatory authority on neighboring rights, the subject of European legislation implemented in 2019, that France was the first to transpose.