French regulator fines Google €250 million for breaching deal with news publishers

France’s competition watchdog has fined Alphabet’s Google €250 million ($271.73 million) for violating EU intellectual property rules by using content from publishers to train its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Bard. 

This is the fourth order issued by the regulator in the matter in four years following the adoption of a anU law on 24 July 2019 that aimed to implement conditions for balanced negotiation between publishers, press agencies, and digital platforms. 

This is the second time that Google has been fined by the French competition authority. In 2021, Google was fined €500 million for non-compliance with several injunctions issued against it in April 2020.

Later in June 2022, regulator Autorité de la Concurrence (Competition Authority) accepted Google’s commitments creating a framework for negotiation and sharing of information to provide transparent remuneration to publishers. 

The regulator noted in its 20 March order that Google had failed to respect commitments it made to media publishers in 2022.

The watchdog said that Google’s Bard AI chatbot launched in July 2023, since renamed Gemini, had used content from publishers and press agencies for the purposes of training its founding model, without notifying them or the authority. 

Besides, Google did not offer a technical solution allowing publishers and press agencies to object to the use of their content by Bard, thus hindering their ability to negotiate remuneration.

Google had decided not to contest the facts as part of settlement proceedings, the authority said. The company has also proposed a series of corrective measures to respond to certain shortcomings identified in the probe. 

In a statement after the order, Google said it 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.

“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,” Google said. 

“We have compromised because it is time to turn the page and, as our numerous agreements with publishers prove, we want to focus on sustainable approaches in order to connect Internet users with quality content and work constructively with publishers,” Google further said. 

“But it is also important to note that we consider that the amount of the fine is disproportionate in view of the breaches noted by the ADLC (Autorité de la Concurrence). It does not take sufficient account of the efforts we have made to respond to the various comments – in an environment where it is very complicated to define a course of action when we cannot anticipate a precise direction,” it added.