French press body asks competition watchdog to take action over Google AI

By Inti Landauro

PARIS, ‌Aug 11 (Reuters) - A ​French ​press association has asked the country's competition watchdog to take action against Google's artificial intelligence-generated ‌article summaries, which the trade group says deprive ⁠newspapers and magazines of readers.

The group has called on the regulator ‌to make a decision similar ‌to that which ordered Meta to put forward a payment plan and resume talks with traditional media ​seeking fees for the use of their content by AI tools.

The Alliance of General Information Press, which represents ⁠French newspapers and magazines, opposes the recent rollout of AI-generated article summaries ​by Google without consultation, the alliance said in a statement.

Google did not respond immediately to a ​request for comment.

Four years ago ‌the competition watchdog forced Alphabet's Google to pay for using French press articles on its ⁠platforms, including its search engines.

Google was fined €500 million ($576.8 million) after the copyright dispute.

"The unilateral deployment of new uses of press ⁠content, without prior authorisation or dedicated remuneration, disregards these commitments," the ​alliance said, adding that the communications regulator, Arcom, has estimated traffic on their sites has fallen by between 33% and 38% because ‌of AI-generated summaries.

"The fact that AI is built upon media content means one single ‌thing: this information has considerable value," Marc Feuillee, the alliance's ⁠president, said in the ‌statement. Publishers demand ​this value is shared, he added.

($1 = 0.8669 euros)

(Reporting by Inti LandauroEditing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and David ‌Goodman)

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