This investigation against Google and its parent company Alphabet seeks to determine whether the American giant has imposed "practices that may represent an abuse of dominant position" with regard to media groups, said the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) in a statement published Tuesday evening.
It was opened after a complaint from an organization representing media groups, publishing houses and authors, the Centro Español de Derechos Reprográficos (Spanish Center for Reproduction Rights), explains the CNMC.
According to the competition authority, Google may have imposed "unfair commercial conditions on publishers of press publications and news agencies established in Spain, relating to the exploitation of their content protected by intellectual property".
The CNMC does not indicate the period covered by the investigation, nor what type of sanctions Google faces if these accusations of abuse of dominant position were to be proven.
The European Union (EU) and some member countries have multiplied in recent years disputes with American digital giants including Google, which has been sanctioned by heavy fines from the EU, for a total of 8 billion euros, in three antitrust cases.
The EU agreed in March 2022 on new legislation, the Digital Markets Regulation, to end the abuse of dominant positions by digital giants.
The notion of "related rights", which allows newspapers, magazines or news agencies to be remunerated when their content is reused on the Web, was introduced for online platforms by a European directive, adopted in March 2019 by the European Parliament.
The France was the first EU country to implement the reform, with a law adopted in July 2019 that entered into force three months later.
© 2023 AFP