France Slams Google With 1.1 Million Euros Over Hotel Rankings Practices

France Slams Google With 1.1 Million Euros Over Hotel Rankings Practices

France Slams Google With 1.1 Million Euros Over Hotel Rankings Practices. image: Wikipedia

France Slams Google With 1.1 Million Euros Over Hotel Rankings Practices.

Google Ireland and Google France have agreed to pay a 1.1 million euros fine after a probe found that Google’s hotel rankings could be misleading for consumers, France’s finance ministry and fraud watchdog said.

The ministry and watchdog also said in a statement that Google has amended its hotel rankings practices since September 2019.

Following complaints from hoteliers about the rank being shown on Google, the French government agency launched investigations into the matter in 2019 and 2020. Google said that it had now made the necessary changes to show the official French star rank of hotels on Google Maps and Search.

Google news pays out to French publishers

An agreement between Google and the Alliance de la presse d’information generale (APIG), a lobby group representing most major French publishers, was announced previously, but financial terms had not been disclosed.

The move infuriated many other French outlets, which deemed it unfair and opaque. Publishers in other countries will scrutinise the French agreement, the highest-profile in the world under Google’s new program to provide compensation for news snippets used in search results.

The second document is a settlement agreement under which Google agrees to pay €8.2 million to the same group in exchange for the publishers’ commitment not to sue over copyright claims for three years.


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Tony Winterburn

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