France's competition authority ruled on Thursday that Google must pay French publishing companies and news agencies for re-using their content, such as snippets from articles in the search engine's results.
Emer McCarthy reports.
Google must pay French press over search results
Google will now be forced to pay French publishing companies and news agencies to re-use their content, following a French competition authority ruling on Thursday (April 9).
The ruling applies to snippets from news reports that would appear in search results.
The tech giant announced last year that they would stop doing so for French users to comply with a new European copyright law.
The competition authority said in a statement, that, quote "Google’s practices caused a serious and immediate harm to the press sector." The tech giant said it would comply with the verdict, which followed a complaint by unions representing French press publishers.
The company's head of news said that since the copyright law came into force they have been engaging with publishers to increase their support and investment in news.