Google Inc. (GOOG) Reaches $82M Deal With French Publishers

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been in so many disputes French and European Union authorities, that not  only are key figures at Google on a first-name basis with EU and French government officials, but Google itself may be a four-letter word in Europe. But now it seems that Google is taking a step to make nice, at least with some grumbling French publishers.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has always included “snippets” of news stories under the links to web sites on its search results pages. However, French publishers complained that they were losing traffic to their web sites because Google’s snippets were often just enough for people to read the news they wanted, and they wouldn’t click on the link to the news site that had the full story. As a result of that, these publishers were appealing to officials in several EU-member countries to crack down on Google, even going so far as to tax Google, or force the company to pay for access to the snippets. In retaliation, Google said it would stop indexing all French news sites on its search results.

After a couple months of negotiations, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has reached an agreement with the French government and the publishers which will keep the French news sites on Google Search results and take advantage of Google’s advertising machine to increase revenue, and Google agreed to give $82 million to a fund that would encourage digital publishing progress in innovation.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt, who was in France to sign the agreement with French President Francois Hollande, wrote in a blog post, “Our search engine generates billions of clicks each month, and our advertising solutions — in which we have invested billions of dollars — help them make money from that traffic.”

Does a dispute with French publishers sound at all familiar?

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) reached this deal in the wake of losing a court battle with French-language publishers in Belgium, which filed suit claiming that Google had no right to grab snippets of its news content for Google News without permission or compensation. The court agreed, and a six-year battle ended when the two sides came to an agreement in December where the publishers will get access to Google’s advertising, and Google would then be included on the publishers’ media.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) also had a run-in with French citizens surrounding Street View. Google admitted that while its camera traveled around several European countries, collecting photographs for its Google Maps feature, it had collected personal information from local wi-fi networks – including emails, passwords and browsing histories – over a three-year period ending in 2010.

What do you think about this deal? Who do you think was right in this dispute – the French publishers or Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)? How will this affect Google over the coming months? We’d like your feedback in the comments section below.

DISCLOSURE: I own no positions in any stock mentioned.

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