Google fined 500 million in France over bad faith negotiations with news outlets

Google is being charged with a historic €500 million ($589 million) fine from the French Competition Authority (FCA) for failing to comply with an April 2020 order to negotiate fairly with news publishers over the use of, and payment for, their articles and other content (via CNBC).

News publishers gained the ability to request payment for the use of their content on third-party platforms with the passage of the European Union’s controversial Copyright Directive, which was adopted by France in 2019 and generally tries to shift power toward content producers rather than the platforms that reshare their work. Article 11 of the directive, colloquially called the “Link Tax,” gives publishers the right to ask for payment for snippets of...

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