France’s major online newspaper publishers have called for a new legislation which will ensure internet search engines including Google have to pay them for using their published content.
A law should force a settlement in the battle with Google, which obtains high advertising revenue from user searches for news published on media websites, reported AFP, citing an interview published in the business daily Le Figaro.
Les Echos publisher Francis Morel said Google had a quasi-monopoly in internet search in France, which led it to have a hold on the advertising market associated to such searches.
"You have to know that Google is today one of the top advertising agencies in France with more than a billion euros in sales," Morel said.
The search engine giant, which has its European base in Ireland, reported about €41m in revenue in France.
The country’s earlier conservative-led government had cautioned internet giants that it may attack and adopt a new law to tax revenue generated form online advertisements.
In 2011, politicians in France discarded plans for a tax on online advertising revenues, believing the project would cause damages to small local firms when compared to global internet giants.
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