Google has been fined 250 million Euros (~RM 1.3 billion) in France by the country's anti-monopoly body due to the use of data to train artificial intelligence (AI) Bard (now Gemini). They were found guilty of using writings belonging to the French media to train the Bard model without the permission of the intellectual property holder of the work.
Google admitted it was wrong and now says it will engage with French media to connect people with quality content and work constructively with publishers in the country.
Google originally agreed to settle the issue in 2022 by paying $500 million Euros in compensation. However, Google was later found to be in breach of four of the seven agreed upon guidelines resulting in additional fines being imposed again.
The issue of the use of data owned by publishers and media occurs worldwide but only receives the attention of authorities in developed countries such as the EU and the United States. This issue is also happening in Malaysia but with the guidelines and bill on AI in Malaysia still vague, local media practitioners can only see because they don't have the right channels that can be used to get the same compensation.