France fines Google in AI dispute with news media

French regulators said Wednesday that Google has failed to notify news publishers that it is using their articles to train its artificial intelligence algorithms, part of a broader ruling against the company over its negotiating practices with media outlets.

The disclosure by the French competition authority was part of a fine of 250 million euros, or approximately $270 million, for failing to enter into fair licensing agreements with media companies to publish article links in search results. Officials also criticized the company for using news articles to train its AI chatbot, now called Gemini, without notifying media companies or giving them a method to prevent their content from being used until September last year.

Google has been embroiled in a long-running dispute with publishers over how much to pay for displaying news content in search results and other services. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has also struggled with government attempts to extract compensation for publishers in Australia and Canada.

The debate has taken on new urgency as the media objects to the use of their articles to train AI systems. The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December for copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems.

French regulators say legal questions about the fair use of news content to train AI applications “have not yet been resolved.” Still, authorities say they violated a previous deal with the government by “failing to inform publishers about the use of their content for their Bard software,” using the former name of Google’s AI chatbot.

French authorities have sided with local publishers who claim that Google and other big tech companies have unfairly profited from their content without fair payment. In 2022, regulators fined Google €500 million and ordered the company to negotiate licensing deals with French publishers.

Regulators say Google failed to negotiate with publishers in good faith because it failed to share necessary information with a regulator assigned to the deal talks. Authorities said Google used “opaque” data when determining what to pay publishers and did not fully take into account all the different ways the company monetized content produced by media outlets.

Google said the fine is “disproportionate to the issues raised by the regulator” but agreed to the fine announced on Wednesday.

“We have compromised because it is time to turn the page and, as our numerous agreements with publishers prove, we want to focus on sustainable approaches to connecting Internet users to quality content and working constructively with publishers,” it said company. said in a statement.