Google has been ordered to pay a total of €126 million in damages to several French media companies following a ruling by the Paris Economic Activities Court, which found that the tech giant’s online advertising practices breached market competition rules.
Under the terms of the judicial decision, the damages will be distributed among four major media plaintiffs: Prisma Media is set to receive €61 million, the daily newspaper Le Figaro was awarded €26 million, the digital video platform Dailymotion will claim €27.5 million, and the publishing group behind Les Echos and Le Parisien will receive €11.5 million.
Despite the significant financial penalties imposed by the Parisian commercial court, the total approved compensation falls substantially short of the €570 million originally demanded by the four media organizations.
In an official response following the verdict, Google expressed its strong disagreement with the court’s findings.
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“These claims for damages are based on flawed interpretations of the ad tech sector, which is a highly competitive and rapidly evolving industry,” the company stated.
The U.S.-based technology firm has not yet clarified whether it intends to file a formal appeal to contest the ruling in higher courts.
The judgment follows a pattern of heightened regulatory pressure on Google’s advertising infrastructure in Europe. In a similar case handled by French courts, Google was ordered to pay €22.7 million to the television network M6 for anti-competitive behavior. In that instance, the company was found guilty of unfairly favoring its own proprietary online ad-selling platform during the automated allocation of advertising spaces, directly squeezing out market competitors.
The historical basis for these private civil damages rests heavily on prior regulatory actions. French courts heavily cited an antitrust decision by the French Competition Authority, which penalized Google with a €220 million fine, as well as a separate European Commission antitrust ruling that imposed a massive €2.95 billion penalty on the company.
