From Google to OpenAI: the lawsuits that fuel the debate about the future of media

One of the few certainties that exists about the technological changes that modify our lives daily is that they will not stop. For the media, the transformations of recent decades have opened a global debate – still ongoing – about how to survive new business models and an increasingly challenging information ecosystem due to the enormous power of ‘Big Tech’. Some governments and media outlets took the bull by the horns and confronted giants like Google It is OpenAI on a thorny path in which one demand predominates: more regulation.

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When it comes to technology giants, Google’s business conduct is the one that has generated the most complaints in recent years. At least a hundred lawsuits have been filed around the world against the most important Internet search engine on the planet.

Nowadays, eyes are focused on the historic trial against Google for technological monopoly – the first of the modern Internet era – which has just entered its final stretch in the United States. The Department of Justice in that country sued the platform in 2020. and its parent company Alphabet, for violating federal antitrust laws to maintain its dominance in online search and associated advertising.

Specifically, Washington accuses Google of competing unfairly by making million-dollar deals to occupy standard search positions on browsers, cell phones, computers and other devices.

The ruling is expected within a few weeks or months, and while it could be appealed by Google, it could change the way the company does business and set an important precedent, especially considering that US regulators have also sued Apple, Amazon and Apple. Target for similar behavior.

Google is also the technology company most punished by European Commission sanctions and is preparing to receive a new reprimand. In January, the EU lawyer supported the imposition of a €2.4 billion fine on Google for favoring its products in its search results.

Facing tech giants has been more complex for the media. In February, 32 publishing groups – including Prensa Ibérica (“El Periódico”, “El Periódico de España”) and Godo (“La Vanguardia”) – chose to group together to sue Google in the District Court of Amsterdam (Netherlands). for 2.1 billion euros due to the company’s practices in the online advertising sector.

There is an important precedent in Europe, where the first case of its kind was brought against Google. In 2021, the French competition authority concluded that the company had abused its dominant position in the advertising industry by favoring its own tools over those of the competition and imposed a fine of one million dollars.

Another case that could end badly for Google in the United States is the lawsuit filed by the Arkansas news organization “Helena World Chronicle”. Media publishers took issue with Google’s practice of scraping content from its pages and enriching its search results with that material.

The claims are not just against Google. The debate about the power of technology giants has been fueled by the advancement of artificial intelligence, championed by OpenAI and its ChatGPT chatbot, which is already facing complaints in Europe and the US.

(The trade)

In late 2023, The New York Times became the first major American news organization to sue OpenAI and its partner Microsoft for copyright infringement of their written works, considering that their articles were used to feed the chatbots that are now your competitors.

According to an analysis by the aforementioned media, “the race to lead artificial intelligence has become a desperate search for the digital data needed to advance the technology. To obtain this data, technology companies like OpenAI, Google and Meta took shortcuts, ignored corporate policies and debated how to break the law.

Do AI chatbots violate copyright laws? Is Google involved in unfair competition? It is a debate in its infancy, but one that resonates more and more. In Latin America, Copesa, publisher of the Chilean newspaper “La Tercera”, is the first to take Google to court for what it considers practices of abuse of a monopolistic position in the digital advertising market, requesting a tax benefit penalty of almost US$ US$50 million.

In its lawsuit filed in March before the Free Competition Defense Court (TDLC), Copesa alleges that Google violated free competition rules “by abusing its near-monopoly position in the search and search advertising markets.”

Chilean competition expert Ximena Rojas, partner at the Rojas Pacini firm and one of the two lawyers leading Copesa’s legal action against the multinational, believes that technology giants cannot have so much power without regulation and that the most important demands are those linked to news content in which the media claims that Google appropriates its content and uses it in its own ecosystem, without the media being able to monetize this product.

“The media creates content, but many people get it through Google. Most of the time, readers stay in the Google environment without clicking on the content generator. This affects the press in a tremendous way because it ends up without being able to finance itself, with less data verification, fewer journalists and, at the end of the day, there is a decline in the quality of the press and in the freedom of the press”, says the The trade.

Google is the most popular search engine in the world. (Photo: PhotoMIX-Company / Pixabay)

In addition to these allegations, another important part of the lawsuits against Google focuses on the digital advertising sales system, called AdTech, which, according to the complainants, also ends up being controlled by Google, as an important part of demand and supply. of advertising on websites is captured in the Google Ads transaction system, Google’s advertising network.

Rojas believes that technology giants cannot have so much power without regulation. “Google imposes its rules. It’s like a private regulator that imposes its rules. And what is alleged, not only in Chile, but in other places around the world, is that there are abuses. Because these are giants against which you have no negotiating power. Small national companies, even with enormous resources in different countries, have no or very little negotiating power vis-à-vis these entities,” he states.

Google responds by presenting itself as an innovative company that does not represent a monopoly, since, it argues, there is a scenario of free competition in which markets change quickly, making the existence of a dominant position impossible.

“Current digital platforms generally take this position. But I don’t agree. What we have seen is that despite any innovation in the markets, there are companies that have a very difficult market position. Google has a market share of more than 90% in terms of search engines and has remained that way for several years”, says Michael Jacobs, director of international competition litigation at the Canadian firm CFM Lawyers LLP, to this newspaper.

Faced with this scenario, many media outlets have chosen to make agreements with technology giants so that they are remunerated at a minimum. For example, ChatGPT’s parent company this year announced agreements to use content from the French newspaper “Le Monde”; the Spanish group Prisa Media, which includes publications such as “El País”, “AS” or “El Huffpost”, among others.

Jacobs highlights that it is difficult to take a position on whether it is more convenient for a media outlet to reach an agreement or bet on a legal battle. “Everything will depend on the context, the reality of the media, the country. However, much of what will come in the future for these industries and for technological development will depend on what happens now, how it is negotiated and what the authorities do”, she concludes.

Rojas emphasizes that we must take into account the risks of choosing the path of reaching agreements with ‘Big Tech’. “It is essential to see how they are negotiated, because these negotiations and agreements can set a precedent or can have the opposite effect if they weaken negotiating power on these issues. They can also set very low standards and ultimately nothing will be regulated or sanctioned,” he points out.

While the debate continues, most media and journalism continue to fight for survival in a complex context to which variables such as distrust and misinformation can be added. In a speech on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, Chilean journalist and researcher Ascanio Cavallo laments the “intimidating environment in which the media has been immersed” since the late 1990s and believes it is time to confront the platforms digital technologies now that “a second wave is coming, hand in hand with what has been called ‘artificial intelligence’”.

These platforms “are deteriorating, not only the media, but what they represent: our coexistence, our tolerance, our democracy and our sense of community. Never before in the history of humanity have conglomerates of this size and nature acted with so much impunity. It’s time to face them,” he concluded.

Source: Elcomercio