Google hit with a $270M fine in France, for using News publisher content to train Gemini
On Wednesday, Google was hit with a fine of roughly $270, in part how the company has trained its AI model Gemini.
According to the Watchdog, the company has used the journalists’ content without their permission or without even training them, to train their AI chatbots.
In their statement, Google has promised to -“negotiate in good faith based on transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria,” which the regulators referred to as “Commitment 1.”
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However, the regulator said that it is imposing a new fine on Google as it failed to fulfill its previous commitment. “When it comes to declaring whether using news content to train an artificial intelligence service falls under neighboring rights and protection, this question has not been answered just yet,” the competition authority wrote. “However, Autorité considers that Google has breached its commitment #1 by failing to inform publishers that their content had been used to train Bard.”
The Authority has found Google guilty, for training its AI chatbot known as Bard or Gemini, for using the content of news publishers without notifying them.
Google said ‘it is time to turn the page’:
Google has shared a blog post after this fine and said that the company is compromising as this is the time to move on from this long dispute.
Sulina Connal, Managing Director, News and Publishing Partnerships said that-” the Competition Authority (ADLC) today imposed a sanction of 250 million euros against Google for the way in which we conducted these negotiations. The FCA also demanded changes in the way we negotiate, which we accepted as part of an agreement reached to finally close this file that has been open for too long”.
“We have compromised because it is time to turn the page. We want to focus on sustainable approaches in order to connect Internet users with quality content and work constructively with publishers. French.” – Sulina added in her blog post.
However, that is not the first time in history, that any AI chatbot is alleged to use the content of news publishers to train their chatbots. Last year, the New York Times also filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, to use their published content to train their AI model without their permission.
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Additionally, tech companies are also making deals with news publication houses, so that they can the data for training purposes.
