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France rules Google must pay news firms for content

reuters.com

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Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#191

Post by CamperBob2 »

enz wrote: post #189
CamperBob2 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mountain View, California is already a long way TFO of France.

"Google France" is a French company, with headquarters in Paris. They have employees and they do business under the French law like any other French company.

Right. I'm saying that France is the bigger loser if Google pulls out. They need a pipe to google.com far more than Google needs an office in France.

Something, something, something, once you pay them the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane...

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#192

Post by anoncake »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #100
Reventlov wrote: post #57

The actual PDF of the decision is there: https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/sites/default/files/i... The arguments are: - Press freedom is a fundamental right - The press is not in its best state right now in France, so hitting them (for example, removing them from the search result from Google, which is in a monopoly position) is dangerous for the press freedom - Google did not try to negotiate a fair price for…

> Google is discriminatory as it applies to newspapers equal treatments, even if they are in different situations This would appear to be the opposite of what "discriminatory" means.

Maybe not in French legalese.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#193

Post by yostrovs »

akiselev wrote: post #121
satyrnein wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can someone negotiate a rate without the ability to walk away?

They do have the ability to walk away - just like users have the ability to walk away from Google. They can cease operations in France and remove themselves from France's jurisdiction (probably the whole EU, including their wonderful little tax haven). They did it to China once, if I remember correctly, after a series of state sponsored Gmail breaches. Don't want to pay? Don't participate. I'm enjoying the schadenfre…

France can pretend that Google doesn't exist.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#194

Post by boudin »

wolco wrote: post #125
boudin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google without any content to list will be kinda useless. As a user, a search engine that decides to not list some content for this kind of reason makes it a quite bad search engine.

Without any content? These newspaper make up less content than a needle in a haystack. If google just listed twitter results that would fill the information void immediately. If alt publishers were promoted maybe more opinions would be exposed.

Twitter is not an information channel. Alt publisher aren't "alt" something if their opinion is promoted, they are mainstream publisher then. And journalism is a full time job. You should look at how investigation journalist work before spitting on them to realise that it can be replaced by random stuff with unverified content, fake news, or propanganda activists.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#195

Post by lma21 »

manfredo wrote: post #187
hedora wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling targeting information about me is a form of “selling my data”. Out of $160b in revenue in 2019, $134b of Google’s revenue came from ads. Most of the ad revenue is in the form of targeted ads, so if they stopped selling people’s information, they’d immediately go under. Similar numbers apply to Facebook. I honestly don’t understand where this argument that those companies don’t sell people’s information comes…

Nor are they selling targeted information. When I purchase ads targeting a specific demographic, I don't get to see who was served ads. I could correlate this with new customers following the ad campaign, but the same could be done by airing TV ads in specific households and doing the same correlation. You seem to have a much more expansive idea of what selling information means as compared to other commenters. Googl…

(nor the original op) Indeed, you're making quite a valid point, and we, as users of Google's services, have accepted this policy the day we started using their services for free.

Don't want Google to benefit off your browsing-data? you can stop using their services.

Now, the question becomes, is that actually possible? If I stop using Google Search, Gmail, Youtube, etc. would they stop collecting my "user data"?

I can replace Google with Facebook/Amazon/Criteo/... or anyone involved in the ad-retargeting business.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#196

Post by zepto »

londons_explore wrote: post #162
zepto wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can they instead simply start their own news gathering operation?

They'd get fined heavily for that... Using a monopoly position in one market to enter another...

If that were true, then Google can’t start any new information service businesses.

Is that what you are saying?

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#197

Post by criddell »

bagacrap wrote: post #99
criddell wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think Google News has any value to Google?

This interpretation of the law says that Google must pay for the right to direct traffic to a publisher who is running some other ad network's ads (or uses a subscription model). No, I do not think this arrangement has any value to Google, in fact it is obviously negative value.

It isn't obvious to me at all. When you visit a newspaper site via a Google link, Google uses that information to build a more complete profile of you and of what the broader public is interested in right now. Those signals are valuable to Google.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#198

Post by thatguy0900 »

zepto wrote: post #196
londons_explore wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd get fined heavily for that... Using a monopoly position in one market to enter another...

If that were true, then Google can’t start any new information service businesses. Is that what you are saying?

I'm sure they could start something in a different area where regulators arnt already breathing down their necks. France probably wouldn't react well to the specific plan to start a news org though.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#199

Post by thaumasiotes »

anoncake wrote: post #192
thaumasiotes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is discriminatory as it applies to newspapers equal treatments, even if they are in different situations This would appear to be the opposite of what "discriminatory" means.

Maybe not in French legalese.

That could certainly be the case, but...

(1) It would still be disturbing if the meaning of "discrimination" in French legalese was the exact opposite of its meaning everywhere else including vernacular French. War is peace.

(2) I have a sneaking suspicion that the meaning of "discrimination" in French law is sometimes this and sometimes the ordinary meaning, and if that's true it's a much worse state of affairs than just the legal meaning being opposed to the ordinary meaning.

Re: France rules Google must pay news firms for content

#200

Post by CamperBob2 »

eli wrote: post #11
mc32 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, pull the plug on them. Let’s see what they say then. I can’t imagine them forcing Google to list them but also pay them. Let’s see how organic traffic works for them.

Bad for users in the meantime.

Maybe the users will remember that in the next election.
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