France fines Google 500m euros over copyright row

France's antitrust watchdog yesterday slapped a 500 million euro ($593 million) fine on Alphabet's Google for failing to comply fully with temporary orders it had given in a row with the country's news publishers. The US tech giant must within the next two months come up with proposals on how it would compensate news agencies and other publishers for the use of their news. If it does not do that, it would face additional fines of up to 900,000 euros per day. News publishers APIG, SEPM and AFP accuse the tech giant of having failed to open talks in good faith with them to find common ground for the remuneration of news content online, under a recent EU directive that creates so-called "neighbouring rights".