The French competition authority has issued a ruling requiring Google to pay local publications and news outlets for the content they use. A temporary solution to this issue has been in effect since the EU copyright law came into force in France. In accordance with it, since October last year, Google has to pay publishers for the used fragments of their articles.
The French antitrust authority considered that Google "abuses its dominant position and causes serious damage to the print sector." A Google representative, commenting on this issue, confirmed that the company intends to follow the requirements of the regulator. It was noted that Google began to cooperate with publishers and increased investment in news last year, when the corresponding law came into force.
However, the regulator noted that "many publishers in the press sector have licensed Google to use and display copyrighted content, but have not received any monetary compensation from the company." It is assumed that publishers were forced to give away content for free, since Google has 90% of the search engine market in France. Otherwise, publishers could suffer from reduced user traffic if their article excerpts weren't published in Google's SERPs.
The antimonopoly service's decision came after complaints from several major news outlets and trade unions. While Google is negotiating with publishers, the company must continue to display news snippets, photos, and videos in accordance with current (unpaid) agreements. After the parties come to an agreement, Google will have to pay compensation retroactively, starting in October 2019.
Source: 3dnews.ru