
French regulator says Google must pay news sites to send them traffic - renchap
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/french-regulator-says-google-must-pay-news-sites-to-send-them-traffic/?comments=1
======
simonblack
The last time this policy was threatened (by Belgium?? IIRC) Google merely cut
those websites completely out of the search results. In a matter of weeks
those websites were seeing their internet traffic drop to practically nil.

Then it was "Google, please!"

~~~
genocidicbunny
Except in this case, the French order is also trying to force them to not
alter the results:

"The regulator is also ordering Google not to alter the indexing,
classification, or presentation of "protected content"—e.g. French news
articles—in its search results."

My reading is that the French are trying to force Google to pay for linking to
news articles, and prevent them from removing those links. That is, the French
are well aware of what happened in Spain (it was Spain, not Belgium) and are
trying to prevent that too.

This doesn't sit well with me. It seems that in the US, this comes really
close, if not over the line of being compelled speech. The French are trying
to force Google to display certain search results, and on top of that, pay for
the privilege of being forced to do so.

Google is probably more invested in France than they are in Spain, so pulling
out entirely is likely not in the cards, but it would send a heck of a message
if suddenly no one in France was able to use any french Google services.

------
pepe56
It seems like Google disabled excerpts to news sites in France back in
September 2019 leaving the search results only with the headlines/titles of
news pages. What the French do there sounds incredibly unfair and I am
certainly not a fan of Google.

------
rvnx
There is a side-question about this, are search engine even legal at all, by
violating copyrights by publishing excerpts of websites (or full content like
lyrics) in their search results without owner consent.

~~~
7786655
If they don't consent they can just block Google with their robots.txt.

