Google will have to pay 551 crores to news publication, know why?

Google has signed an agreement with APIG Alliance, a group of French newspapers under the new French law, under which the search engine giant will pay Rs 551 crore to 121 newspapers in France. Alliance says that Google is earning crores of rupees by displaying advertisements on its platform along with news of newspapers and digital news websites. In such a situation, newspapers and digital news publications have asked for a share of earnings. Explain that Google had signed a three-year agreement with APIG Alliance last month to pay the money, but the amount of Rs 551 crore has now been fixed.

According to the French agency, Google France will pay Rs 551 crore to 121 news publications under an agreement with APIG Alliance, a group of French newspapers. The deal between Google and APIG was done last month, but the amount to be paid is now decided. Google was reportedly not ready for this initially. However, now a three-year agreement has been reached between the search engine giant and APIG.

In 2014, a similar law was enacted in Spain, under which Google was asked to pay large sums to news organizations, but instead of paying the amount, Google stopped its ‘Google News’ category in Spain. Granted. Google was preparing to do the same with France, but Google had to bow to the government’s tough stand. The amount will be decided according to the content received from the news publication.

According to a report by Amar Ujala, Google had a turnover of Rs 3.34 lakh crore in the third quarter of 2020, with Rs 2.70 lakh crore raised from advertising. Therefore, Rs 551 crore does not appear to be a huge amount for Google.

First Spain, then France and now it is reported that Australia is also preparing to enact a similar law.