Google (GOOGL) Fined €250 Million in French Clash With News Publishers

Alphabet Inc.’s Google was fined €250 million ($271 million) by France’s competition watchdog for failing to keep its pledge to broker fair agreements with media outlets for publishing links to their content, including by plundering press articles to train its AI technology, without informing them.

The move from the French authority marks another escalation in its bid to get Google to deal with the media sector more fairly, after having previously slapped the US tech giant with a €500 million penalty for earlier abuses.