In the June 2011 issue of Socially Aware, we reported on a Brussels Court of Appeal ruling in favor of Copiepresse, the Belgian association for the protection of French-language press copyright, in a case against Google. To recap, on May 5, 2011, the Brussels Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling that Google had infringed copyright when it displayed links to and extracts of online newspaper articles that were usually only available to paying subscribers of the online newspapers at issue.
In reaction to the May 5th ruling, Google removed all Belgian French-language daily newspapers from its search index and cache on July 15, 2011. As a result, the websites for Belgian newspapers Le Soir, La Libre Belgique, Sudpresse and l’Echo were unavailable in Google’s search results on both Google News and Google’s main search page. Belgian national Le Soir took issue with Google’s actions and, in an article dated July 16, 2011, complained that Google made “Belgium newspapers disappear.” Within hours of learning about Google’s actions, Copiepresse entered into negotiations with Google, and reached an agreement resulting in the news sites and certain related content being restored to Google search results by July 18, 2011. The agreement reportedly allows Google to link to the online news sites in Google’s search results, but not to reproduce extracts of articles in Google’s news service.
Google’s actions were based on its literal interpretation of the Court of Appeal’s ruling, and in the company’s defense, a Google spokesperson stated that Google was merely eliminating all risks of incurring fines of EUR 25,000 (approximately USD 35,600) per day for non-compliance with the ruling. Google sought the waiver of potential penalties with respect to restoring links to the news sites on its search service. Nevertheless, Google’s conduct has been characterized by observers as an effort to “punish” Belgium’s French-language press for objecting to Google’s business practices, and sent a stark warning to online news publishers, many of whom depend on Google-generated traffic for customers and ad revenues.
All this comes at a time of heightened antitrust scrutiny for Google in the EU. For example, German and Italian press associations have already brought antitrust-related complaints against Google. Also, portions of the German complaint were referred to by the European Commission competition service, which opened formal proceedings against the search giant for alleged abuse of dominant position in November 2010. The EU investigation focuses on Google’s alleged lack of transparency in rankings, biased search results and unfair terms and conditions. Such cases typically take years to conclude.
In any event, this matter is far from over. Google has not yet filed an appeal against the Brussels Court of Appeal’s ruling, and has until December 2011 to do so.