Tech glitches: Now, Google fined $593 mn in France
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: US-based global technology behemoths, apparently becoming law-unto-themselves and growing too big for their boots, are facing rough weather in one country after another. Governments are coming down with a heavy hand on such tech giants for their rampant violation of rules in different countries.
Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter are already embroiled in controversies for defying local laws in various countries. In India, microblogging giant Twitter, facing the wrath of the government, faces an uncertain future.
Now, Google has been fined 500 million euros (USD 593 million/Rs. 4,419 crores) in France after the search engine giant failed to follow an order to thrash out a fair deal with publishers to use their news content on its platform. The fine was imposed by the French antitrust agency over the news content issue.
Google, a unit of its parent company Alphabet Inc., ignored a 2020 decision to negotiate in good faith for displaying snippets of articles on its Google News service, according to media reports on Tuesday.
“The sanction of 500 million euros takes into account the exceptional seriousness of the breaches observed and what Google’s behavior has led to further delay the proper application of the law,” said Isabelle de Silva, president of the French regulatory agency.
The confrontation between Google and newspaper owners and wire services has been a long time coming. European publishers have been pushing regulators for over a decade to tackle the power of Google, which has lured away billions of euros in advertising revenue. Complaints were lodged in France in 2019 by groupings representing newspapers and magazines as well as Agence France-Presse (AFP).
This fine is the latest show of strength by the French regulator as it vies with its EU and German counterparts to be the region’s toughest watchdog of U.S. tech firms.
