On Thursday , French authority at last accomplished the impossible : getting Google to agree to pay intelligence outlets the licensing fee they ’ve spentmore than half a decadebegging for .
The decision hail follow “ many calendar month of negotiation ” with France ’s competition federal agency after itorderedthe tech goliath to set forth negotiating licensing fee with local newsworthiness publishers back in April of last year . Specifically , the Autorité de la Concurrencetook issuewith Google ’s mandate that require EU - based publishers to volunteer the company detached reign to access its content if they want their stories to be displayed on Cartesian product like Google Search or Google News .
The rationale here , as Google VP Richard Gingras put in ablog postat the time , was that the troupe “ [ sells ] ad , not hunting results . ”
Photo: Alastair Pike (Getty Images)
“ We do n’t swallow payment from anyone to be included in search results , ” he go on . “ That ’s also why we do n’t give publishers when people select their links in a lookup resultant role . ”
Regional publishing company called foulpretty quickly , and nobody was louder about this than the French . The country was the first and so far only role player in the EU thatadoptedthe European Union ’s proposed “ right of first publication reform ” law that was voted through the EU ’s parliament in March of 2019 before being formally put into action throughout France the following October .
Among a fair plowshare of othersemi - controversial statutes , one sticking gunpoint for the tech companies of the humans was a novel exercise set of legal rights admit publishers to go after players like Facebook , Google , and their ilk if they go to extend a “ fairish and proportionate remuneration ” for the “ digital use ” of their press asset .
It ’s the type of legal necessity that seems tricky to jiggle out of , but Google ’s had a destiny of practice as of former . When authorisation in Spain enacted a alike set of anti - competitory copyright measure manner backin 2012 , Google chose toshut downGoogle News for the entire country instead of abide by . When Google mostly eschew the German version of these mandate that the country put into practice session in 2013 , major publishersquickly realizedthat boycotting Google ’s adtech stage business would get their own to plunge — and they were undecomposed off giving up their content for free rather than waging that state of war . year after , when a German newspaper publisher consortium ended up taking Google to homage over some of these — I’ll just say it — extrortion - y tactic , German justice officialssided with the companyanyway .
And that ’s not even touching on the kerfufflehappening in Australiaright now over its own advise copyrighting mandate — an idea that Google is doing its darndest tolobby against . So , you may kind of see why the company ’s choice to finally spelunk in one of these major market is a big shifting .
What the Google - France handshaking will look like in practice is still being press out . In ablog position , Google said it will “ negotiate case-by-case license agreement ” with a selection of sites that have scored theirIPG certificationwith the French government for their work publishing “ political and universal selective information . ” Because that condition is a interlingual rendition from the corporate web log post ’s original French , we reach out to Google to get some insight into whether the distinction is as absurdly blanket as it vocalize in English .
Instead , the response was somehow more confusing . A company spokesperson clarified that a website ’s standing as a root for this sort of entropy comes from “ human , material and financial investments made by publishers and press agencies , along with the contribution these player make “ to political and general selective information and the grandness of use of insistency publication . ”
The regional authority issuing this credential — La Commission paritaire des publications et agences de presse ( or just CPPAP ) define an wall plug in the political - and - general history sphere as one :
“ This data must be of interest significantly exceeding the concerns of a category of readers , ” the CPPAP goes on , adding that these sites require to engage at least one “ professional journalist , ” and must promise not to dabble in stories that skew “ violent or adult . ” In other words , thegeneral rulesare simple enough that any reputable publisher should n’t be too upset about getting the IPG stamp of approval .
Google does n’t clarify these point in the blog , but it does note that its contribution figuring will factor in certain hard numbers , like the number of narrative an outlet pumps out per day and the monthly readership these stories end up garnering .
As is the character with just about every major Google insurance decision , these form of machinations are leave in somevague dark pitthat the fellowship wo n’t disclose , and — if what we saw in Germany still holds honest today — ultimately knows it does n’t have to . Somehow , even when publishing company lionize their own little wins against Google , they ’re still trapped in a cycle where all they can do is misplace .
Update 4:21pm ET : contribute response from Google .
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