Google refuses to pay publishers in France, first to apply EU's copyright law, will only show headlines and thumbnails, unless publisher asks to add previews
Google is drawing its first line against the EU's new copyright rules in France, the first member state to apply them: rather than pay for snippets, it will strip search and Google News results down to headlines and thumbnails, restoring previews only when a publisher explicitly asks. The move turns the law's payment obligation into an opt-in for publishers, shifting the burden onto them to request what was previously automatic.
First-order effects
French publishers face an immediate traffic trade-off — full previews in Google Search and News only arrive if each one affirmatively requests them, otherwise they get bare headlines and thumbnails.
Second-order effects
France's competition authority becomes the enforcement backstop, and its subsequent order forcing Google to pay for snippets shows the refusal strategy triggering regulatory escalation rather than publisher capitulation.
Third-order effects
The standoff hardens into a template: Google ultimately signed a payment framework with French media after France fined it $593M for bad-faith negotiating, establishing state-enforced content licensing as the norm for how platforms compensate European publishers — a structure now extending into AI-era content negotiations.
The trend: Platform-publisher relations are moving from free snippet reuse by default to legally mandated paid licensing, with regulators willing to fine their way there.
“We don't pay publishers when people click on their links in a search result,” said Richard Gingras. Instead, Google will change the way articles appear in search results and remove snippets in France. Story here: https://www.politico.eu/...
Google's answer to French publishers is simply that if they don't want to be on Google News they'll drop them. I'm Germany too. Article 15 is useless. Who could have guessed? Ah yes, EVERY SINGLE EXPERT IN THE WORLD not paid by the copyright industry. https://www.politico.eu/...
Reality is that when #Google search engine has over 92% of market search in search (desktop) + mobile searches in most EU Member States: reality is that all publishers/rivals need the traffic @Google generates on 1st page of a search. Not really a lot of choice for consumers??😊 h…
This doesn't bode well for publishers in Germany and other EU countries who were hoping to force Google to pay. Their content will basically disappear from search apart from a headline https://www.politico.eu/...
The news business is definitely screwed if publishers will persist in the delusion that conjuring up a fair-use-trashing right to limit who can post snippets of their stories will get search sites to hand over cash. https://www.politico.eu/...
So much for the EU “link tax” - after more than three years of fighting over the copyright directive, Google says it won't be paying a penny to news publishers to display on Google news https://www.ft.com/...
Strong recommendation by me for industry to wake up and change Richard Gingras's job title to Google Public Relations. It's absurd how they've gotten away with floating him out there with these same tiring, recycled, and misleading Google talking points for more than a decade. ht…