Google was hit with a roughly $270 million fine on Wednesday, in part over how it trained its AI.
French regulators say Google went back on its commitments tied to negotiating deals with news outlets in France for their content. The watchdog alleged Google used the journalists’ content without telling them in order to teach its AI chatbot Bard — now rebranded as Gemini.
Google had promised in a previous settlement to “negotiate in good faith based on transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria,” which the regulators referred to as “Commitment 1.”
The regulators said there are still legal questions related to the use of news content to train AI models, but “at the very least, the Autorité considers that Google breached Commitment 1 by failing to inform publishers of the use of their content for their Bard software.”
The regulators also said that Google failed to cooperate with a monitoring trustee installed as part of a previous settlement, didn’t negotiate in good faith, and didn’t provide complete revenue information to negotiating parties.
The California-based company was fined €250 million over the listed violations and did not dispute the facts, the French regulators said.
In a statement released Wednesday, Google said the fine was “not proportionate” to the allegations.
Google said it agreed to pay because it was “time to move on.”
In its statement, Google said it was focused on “the larger goal of sustainable approaches to connecting people with quality content and on working constructively with French publishers.”
“Throughout the last few years, we have been willing to discuss concerns from publishers or the FCA and that is still the case today,” Google wrote. “But it is now time for greater clarity on who and how we should be paying so that all parties can plan a course