Google fined $593M for copyright violation with France news publishers; Google disappointed but would comply

France’s Competition Authority (FCA) fined Alphabet’s Google $593 million (500 million euro) on Tuesday for violating the French regulator’s orders to negotiate paid deals with news publishers in France.

The announcement comes just a month after the tech giant was fined €220 million by the same antitrust watchdog for promoting its own services and abusing its ‘dominant position’ in online advertising in France. On June 7, The French Competition Authority fined Google 220 million euros ($267 million) for abusing its market power in the online advertising industry.

The FCA now gives Google two months to come up with proposals on how it would compensate news agencies and other publishers for the use of their news. If it does not do that, Google would face additional fines of up to 900,000 euros per day. Responding to the news, Google spokesperson said the tech giant was very disappointed with the decision but would comply.

“Our objective remains the same: we want to turn the page with a definitive agreement. We will take the French Competition Authority’s feedback into consideration and adapt our offers,” the U.S. tech giant said.

“We have acted in good faith throughout the entire process. The fine ignores our efforts to reach an agreement, and the reality of how news works on our platforms,” the Google spokesperson added.

The French competition regulator also added that Google must negotiate with publishers for the right to show snippets of their content in its search result. The new orders came after complaints from publishers that Google was sidestepping France’s implementation of a new European Union copyright directive.