By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
The search and advertising giant Google is facing a double whammy of legal threats over its media activities in the European Union.
In one case, Google was fined €250 million on March 20 by French regulators, who say the company breached an agreement to pay media companies for reproducing their content online.
In the second case, Google faces a €2.1 billion Euro lawsuit launched by 32 European media companies, who allege they suffered losses due to the company’s practices in digital advertising.
France Alleges Google Trained AI With Content From Publishers and News Agencies
France’s competition authority says it levied the quarter-billion Euro fine against Google for breaches of its intellectual property rules as they apply to the news media. In particular, the regulator said Google’s AI-powered chatbot Bard—now rebranded as Gemini—was trained on content from publishers and news agencies without notifying them.
The government also says the fine was levied for failing to respect commitments Google made in 2022. It accuses Google of failing to negotiate in good faith with news publishers on how much to compensate them for a license to use their content.
When the French regulator first cracked down on this issue, it says Google had promised not to contest the facts as part of settlement proceedings, and also proposed a number of measures to remedy behavior that might violate the IP of news companies. The crackdown is part of a lengthy campaign by France to protect the news media in that country, which it says is threatened by the domination of powerful, foreign tech companies that share news content in web or social media searches.
Google is among the companies, which also includes Meta and X, accused of earning billions of Euros from sharing news articles without sharing revenue to the companies that created that content. In response, the EU created a new form of copyright known as “neighboring rights,” which allow the print media to demand compensation for the use of their content.
The test case for this new law is being fought in France, as it was the first EU country to activate this directive, requiring large tech platforms to open talks with publishers seeking remuneration for use of news content. In 2021 Google was fined €500 million for failing to negotiate in good faith, during a period when it resisted the government’s idea of paying for content.
After initial resistance, Google and Facebook both agreed to pay some French media for articles shown in web searches.
The negotiations resulted in an agreement in 2022 in which France accepted a commitment from Google to negotiate fair compensation with news organizations, which would see it offering payment within three months of receiving a copyright complaint.
Under the agreement, the tech company has to provide news groups with a transparent offer of payment within three months of receiving a copyright complaint.
However, the competition tribunal now says Google has violated the terms of four of the seven commitments it agreed to in the 2022 settlement, including conducting negotiations with publishers in good faith and providing transparent information.
In particular, France pointed to Google’s AI chatbot Bard (now Gemini), which it says was trained using articles from media outlets and news agencies without the company informing them or the regulator.
“Subsequently, Google linked the use of the content concerned by its artificial intelligence service to the display of protected content,” the watchdog said, adding that in doing so Google hindered the ability of publishers and press agencies to negotiate fair prices.
Google does not agree the fine is fair or properly reflects the facts of the case, but it appears the company is not going to fight the fine, preferring to negotiate a clear agreement.
“Google is the first and only platform to have signed a significant number of licensing agreements with 280 French news publishers under the European copyright directive,” Google pointed out in a statement. “These cover more than 450 of their publications—and pay publishers tens of millions of euros a year. Despite this progress, the French competition authority today imposed a €250m fine on Google for how we have conducted those negotiations. They also insisted on changes to how we negotiate, which we have agreed to as part of a settlement of a long-running case.”
The statement added: “We’ve settled because it’s time to move on and, as our many agreements with publishers show, we want to focus on the larger goal of sustainable approaches to connecting people with quality content and on working constructively with French publishers. But it’s important to note that the fine is not proportionate to issues raised by the French competition authority. It also doesn’t sufficiently take into account the efforts we have made to answer and resolve the concerns raised—in an environment where it’s very hard to set a course because we can’t predict which way the wind will blow next.”
Google Also Preparing For Court Battle Over €2.1 Billion Lawsuit
The second major legal action Google faces in the EU comes from 32 media groups, including Axel Springer and Schibsted, which was filed in February.
The media groups represent hundreds of news outlets in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden. They say Google’s practices in its digital advertising division have caused them to suffer losses due to the tech giant’s virtual monopoly over online advertising.
This lawsuit is less tightly related to licensing, but it does point to the fact that Google publishes news content online, while placing ads on that content, and also charging media companies for the ads that are placed on their site.
“The media companies involved have incurred losses due to a less competitive market, which is a direct result of Google’s misconduct,” the plaintiffs said in a statement issued by their lawyers, Geradin Partners and Stek. “Without Google’s abuse of its dominant position, the media companies would have received significantly higher revenues from advertising and paid lower fees for ad tech services. Crucially, these funds could have been reinvested into strengthening the European media landscape.”
The lawsuit comes as a number of companies around the world, including the EU, the United States, and Canada among others, are looking at restricting Google’s grip on digital advertising and content distribution through anti-trust legislation. The main thrust of these efforts is the allegation is that Google owns both the ‘buy side’ and the ‘sell side’ of what’s known as the ‘ad stack’, allowing it to control prices, and charge higher fees or commissions for ads it places on news media websites.
Google, however, rejects the idea that it is acting improperly, and called the lawsuit “opportunistic.”
“Google works constructively with publishers across Europe,” the company said, insisting its advertising technologies “adapt and evolve in partnership with those same publishers.“
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