French court orders Google to halt news search scheme

Google said the project was a 'time-limited experiment' but a magazine staffers' union took action. Photo / Benny Marty

A Paris court has ordered Google to halt a project that would allegedly see the search giant suppress some media articles in search results.

The Paris commercial court was ruling on an emergency injunction sought by the SEPM union that represents magazine staff in France.

The union alleged the search giant was going to start testing on Thursday a scheme under which it would remove from search results some articles from media with which it was clashing over rights for use of online news.

Google however, said the project was a “time-limited experiment” to evaluate the influence of content from European publishers on users’ search experience.

Google and other online platforms have in recent years been accused of making billions from news without sharing the revenue with those who gather it.

To tackle this, the European Union created a form of copyright called “neighbouring rights” that allows print media to demand compensation for using their content.

France has been a test case for the rules and after initial resistance, Google and Facebook both agreed to pay some French media for articles shown in web searches.

Google and SEPM have been negotiating over neighbouring rights for several years.

The Paris court on Wednesday ordered US-based Google LLC, Google Ireland and Google France “to not proceed to test” the reported scheme, or risk a fine of “€300,000 (NZ$539,000) euros each”, according to the court order seen by AFP.

SEPM, which groups 80 media groups, welcomed the order, which it said would “preserve the interests of the French press”.

Google said it was “surprised” by SEPM’s stance, saying it was seeking to collect data because “independent administrative authorities and press publishers have asked us for more information on the impact of the display of news content in our search engine.”

© Agence France-Presse