French Telecom Claims To Have Forced Google To Pay For Traffic

Dupple writes "The head of French telecoms operator Orange said on Wednesday it had been able to impose a deal on Google to compensate it for the vast amounts of traffic sent across its networks. Orange CEO Stephane Richard said on France's BFM Business TV that with 230 million clients and areas where Google could not get around its network, it had been able to reach a 'balance of forces' with the Internet search giant. Richard declined to cite the figure Google had paid Orange, but said the situation showed the importance of reaching a critical size in business. Network operators have been fuming for years that Google, with its search engine and YouTube video service, generates huge amounts of traffic but does not compensate them for using their networks. An editorial piece at GigaOm says Google is abandoning its principles and giving Orange 'the incentive to demand the same from other content providers.'"

Comments

Re:Hurray for French internet users!

[Attila Dimedici]

Yes, how do you think the companies got the monopoly in the first place? That's right, the government gave it to them. Although the correct term is fascism. However it is an easy mistake to make since there is so little difference between socialism and fascism anyway.