The French competition authority announced on Wednesday that it has penalised Alphabet’s Google 250 million euros ($271.73 million) for violating EU intellectual property laws in its dealings with media publishers.
The watchdog cited issues with the company’s artificial intelligence service.
The competition watchdog claims that Google broke some of its initial agreements with news publishers.
The fine is associated with a copyright issue involving internet content in France, which was brought about by complaints from some of the major news agencies in the nation, including Agence France Presse (AFP).
After the Autorite de la Concurrence conducted a thorough investigation and levied an initial 500 million euro sentence, the American tech giant decided not to appeal, thereby resolving the case in 2022.
However, the watchdog claimed in its statement on Wednesday that Google had broken four of the seven terms of the settlement, including the agreements to conduct conversations with publishers in good faith and to provide transparent information.
The watchdog specifically mentioned Google’s AI chatbot Bard, which debuted in 2023 and was allegedly educated on data from unidentified news agencies and media sources without the company’s or the regulator’s knowledge.
Google paid a fee and expedited the procedure in exchange for agreeing not to challenge the Autorité’s most recent conclusions.
Sulina Connal, the company’s managing director of news and publishing partnerships, expressed her displeasure in a lengthy blog post, stating that “the fine is not proportionate to issues raised” by the authority.
Connal writes, “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.”
The blog post suggests Google wants to put an end to the saga this time