The French Competition Authority announced on Wednesday (3/20) that Google’s AI service, Bard (Gemini), has been fined €250 million for using content from local news organizations and publishers to train its models without informing the media entities. This action by Google violated the commitments made in June of last year. Google has accepted the penalty and has no plans to appeal.
The French Competition Authority believes that major tech companies should provide appropriate compensation to local media for their use of news content. After several years of negotiations, Google made commitments in June of last year. However, the authority found that Google violated some of these commitments, including failing to engage in negotiations with media entities within three months based on transparent, objective, and non-discriminatory standards, providing necessary information to evaluate the compensation, and taking necessary measures to ensure that the negotiations do not affect other economic relationships between Google and the media.
The investigation revealed that Google’s Bard service, launched in July last year, used content from local media for training purposes without notifying the authorities or the media entities. Furthermore, when using this copyrighted content in Bard, Google did not provide an opt-out mechanism that would allow the content to appear in other Google services, hindering the media’s ability to negotiate compensation with Google.
Google has decided not to contest the fine imposed by the French Competition Authority and has agreed to take measures to address the aforementioned violations.