60M Euro Smooths Relations Between Google and French Publishers

New submitter Flozzin writes with news of some resolution to the long-standing dispute that some French publishers have had with Google for republishing snippets of news reports without sharing revenue earned from the ads run alongside. Now, reports the BBC, "Google has agreed to create a 60m euro ($82m; £52m) fund to help French media organisations improve their internet operations. It follows two months of negotiations after local news sites had demanded payment for the privilege of letting the search giant display their links. The French government had threatened to tax the revenue Google made from posting ads alongside the results."

Comments

Face-saving trifle

[ConfusedVorlon]

Seems to me that the newspapers didn't have a leg to stand on, and Google gave them a face-saving concession to let everyone walk away with their heads held high.

Google doesn't really care about the $60m, it's a fairly small sum, doesn't set a terrible precedent, and saves them the time and effort of fighting this battle.

Meanwhile, the government has achieved a concession and can walk away without an embarrassing loss of face.

Finally, the newspapers can opt out of google news using their robots.txt if they want to (as they always could).