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The French Competition Authority forced Google to negotiate within 3 months with the publishers of the press and the AFP agency a remuneration mechanism for the publication of its content , because it considers that the rules set by the search engine constitute a abuse of dominant position.

Google will have to carry out these negotiations "in good faith", which will retroactively cover the time elapsed since the entry into force, on October 24, of the French law that transposes the European directive on related rights, of April 2019. , the Competition Authority said in a statement.

Those conversations will not be able to affect the indexing or the presentation of the protected contents of the press and the US internet giant will have to present monthly reports in which it reports on the progress of the process , pending the oversight body. pronounce on the merits.

Because the Competition Authority what it intends with this emergency measure is to protect the publishers of the press and AFP, who filed a complaint against Google, while investigating the case to determine if it has violated competition rules.

For now, what it has found is that Google has a dominant position in France, with a share in general searches of around 90 % at the end of 2019 and strong barriers for other competitors to answer that domain, taking into account investments. necessary.

In addition, with its unilateral decision not to show in the searches of its users more than excerpts from the press content, unless the publishers give it free authorization, it has led most of these to allow the use of those contents. no negotiation possible. That is to say, that it has imposed a null remuneration and has treated everyone equally without an objective justification and without having examined the particularities of each one.

The Competition Authority indicates, from a study of the whistleblowers on 32 press headings, that Google represents between 26 and 90% of the traffic directed to its Internet pages , and that with that level of dependency the publishers do not They can afford to do without that contribution due to their financial difficulties.

This is what has led them to accept conditions that are "even more unfavorable to them" than those that existed before the law for the transposition of related rights came into force.

In summary, he believes that Google's attitude affects the press sector " seriously and immediately, " which, in the context of the severe crisis it is going through, deprives it of resources that the legislator considers "crucial" so that it can maintain exercise.

In a first reaction, the vice president of News at Google, Richard Gingras, stated that "since the European copyright law came into force in France last year we have collaborated with publishers to increase our support and investment in media " "We will comply with the order of the French Competition Authority while we review it and continue with the negotiations," added Gingras.

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