The Alliance de la presse d'information générale, which includes 305 French newspapers, announced on Thursday 24 October that it has filed a complaint against Google before the French Competition Authority for abuse of a dominant position (see EUROPE 12355/23). A preliminary investigation had already been opened on 2 October (see EUROPE 12351/27).
"It is necessary to take precautionary measures to move quickly, because everything must be stopped before the situation becomes irreversible", Marc Feuillée, vice-president of the Alliance de la presse d'information générale, told Les Echos. The European Magazine Media Association (EMMA) and the European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA) have expressed their support for this action.
On French radio, the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, Cédric O, said: "It doesn't seem very smart to me, at a time when there are questions about dismantling, when there are 50 American prosecutors wondering about the size of Google, when there is an FTC investigation in the United States, to wave a red flag under the noses of the States and regulators".
Facebook, on the other hand, redeemed itself, reminding that most of the articles shared on its interface are created by the publishers themselves. “However, a very small part of the content on our platform is published by users, without the consent of the press publishers. Also, if they want the links published by users to be displayed in an enriched format on Facebook, they will have the opportunity to give us their consent”, says Jesper Doub, Director of Partenariats News, Europe, Middle East and Africa on Facebook, in a blog post, referring to the upcoming creation of a space dedicated to news on the platform. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)