A recent experiment by Google in Europe to gauge the effects of removing news articles from its search results has backfired. Under EU law, digital platforms like Google are obliged to pay for reusing news content. As part of its testing process on how much it would pay in this context for the previews, Google operated a trial across nine EU nations that saw 1% of users get only one option: they could not see articles from EU-based news organisations in search results and Google News. Trouble has emerged in the way of unexpected legal challenges from publishers against the test.
News publishers learned about it via a blog post, and an uproar ensued. Within one day after the experiment was announced, the Paris Commercial Court intervened, ruling that Google was violating its agreement with the French Competition Authority. Google was given a choice: end the test or continue it and pay a €900,000 fine for each day it did so. This was followed by France being pulled out of the trial, hence reducing the number of countries from nine to eight.
This incident illustrates the ongoing tussle between the tech giants and news organisations over payment regarding content usage. Even if Google might want to gauge just how much removing news previews would matter, the controversy surrounding the experiment suggests that navigating EU regulations on digital content is far from straightforward. For now, Google has to rethink its approach, especially as more countries may follow France’s lead in pushing back against the test.