Agence France Presse sues Google News

Posted on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 13:36 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck

Agence France Presse (AFP) has sued Google for its Google News service. The company says that Google's online news aggregator is unauthorised grabbing content from AFP's website. This included AFP photographs, news headlines and story snippets.

AFP demands Google to pay a damage compensation of at least $17.5 million and to stop displaying AFP content on Google News.

More information at Reuters

About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.

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Re: Agence France Presse sues Google News
by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 14:39 CET

welcome to the information age.

if it were not for google news agrigator many people would not have even heard of agence france !

one of the beauties of the web and particularty google news, is we can easily get our sources of news from a wide range of origins.

if fame is fortune in the information age , why are you so quick to kick a gift horse in the mouth ?

Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 14:42 CET

I saw this story on Google News :D
- Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 15:20 CET
  
  Well, I have to say, we are a small online news paper and we carry feeds from AP, UPI, SportsTicker and AFP Agence France Presse... What I can tell you is that a basic reuters/ap/afp feed will cost you 10-20K each for starters... So, this stuff is costly, and services like this steal a boatload of bandwidth, sometimes linking the story to another site which actually pays for the feed.
  
  I have to agree at some point that it is a nice service... All your news in one place!
  
  MSN just got into the game to, and there are many other major players.
  
  Yahoo, Excite, MyWay, etc., who also offer this service actually has feeds from all these guys and more, so it's not the same.
  
  Unfortunately, I think we are gonna see this sort of thing more and more often.
  
  About not hearing about AFP...
  
  As for AFP, they are very well known throughout the world, and everyone has seen, heard or read their news, somtimes without knowing it, through any major news outlet or network, and it's prominently featured at Yahoo News.
Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 15:21 CET

Why are you lpunching your gifthorse in the mouth. Google is bring people to your site for free. This is a very poor business decision.
Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 15:34 CET

Agence France Presse is rather well-known outside of Hicksville USA (I mean in the CIVILIZED world)

It's within their rights to deny Google access to the news headlines they create. Google should have asked for permission. They can't display WSJ headlines either.
- Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 15:52 CET
  
  You ***** froggie supporter. Go back to Francy-land and get the hell out of the good 'ol US of A YeeeeHaaaa!!!
- Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 16:25 CET
  
  Excuse me. Hicksville? What were you hoping to accomplish by using this term. If you were trying to get your opinion across you greatly failed. If you were trying to show people how uncultured and uneducated you are it was a great accomplishment.

Re: Agence France Presse sues Google News
by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 15:43 CET

What is news worthy in France other than their broken airplaines, airports that fall down, a medical system that REALLY knows how to take care of old people, 10% unemployment, little school girls than can't observe their religion, jew bashing, their oil interests in Iraq, bla bla bla. I presume they are embarrased to have their news aggrigated in an international forum.

Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 15:53 CET

OMG. it'f France again. I know that France as a country and a french company are two different things.
Usually you should say like that, but in France it's a little bit different.
French government on political arena is marketing their own companies. They are pushing their own companies to everyone.

BTW. take a look at this funny web page mosh girl : www.miscpoject.com/mosh/
Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 15:53 CET

That's really a bad idea from AFP ... News have to be displayed freely and Google News is a very good system. However i'm french and in response to Anonymous, there are problems in France like in all the others countries. And the schools girls and boys can observe their religion without any problems, but they aren't allowed to show religion signs ( and for ALL the religions ) only in school.
- Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 16:24 CET
  
  You are right. All countries have problems. Especially America. In this age, I think there is no hiding from such problems. They should be embraced as a sort of character in development. As an American, in Texas no less, I think the more issues that can be addressed the sooner they will be resolved. France was one of the earliest champions of modern freedom. Technology has only speeded the pace of this theme. It just seems silly when you hear about things like this that somehow the forward pace of freedom of thought and tolerance is becoming more work than it is worth. The path to such freedom is more important than the goal.
  
  Now that Goggle is a profitable public company, I can see that there is breach of independence. Goggle apt to profit from AFP's work. But at the same time, I don't recall ever using AFP's news service. In this regard, AFP gains visibility. The tie breaker should be the one that favors the free movement of information.
  
  Apologies for the old people comment. That was a little low.
Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 15:54 CET

No-no, AFP is quite a well know international news agency. But I agree, this law suit is just dumb.

Re: Agence France Presse sues Google News
by Anonymous on Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 17:45 CET

I've been reading Google News for many years, I've never read any AFP articles there, and I've never even heard of Agence France Press. Sounds like some little outfit angling for a lucrative settlement.

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