Google News de-linked in Belgium

Google Inc. has been ordered by a Belgian court to stop reproducing article snippets from French-language newspapers, in an unprecedented copyright crackdown over what is a common online practice.

The complaint against the world’s most popular search engine was lodged by Copiepresse, an organization which manages copyright for the Belgian French- and German-speaking press.

The court’s ruling, which was issued on September 5, stipulates that Google must pay a fine of 1 million euros ($1.3 million) daily if it did not comply on Monday, Copiepresse general secretary Margaret Boribon said.

Google, which is planning to appeal against the ruling, said later that it had removed links to the newspapers from news.google.be and was in the process of taking them down from its news sites in other countries.

“We are asking for Google to pay and seek our authorization to use our content … Google sells advertising and makes money on our content,” Boribon told Reuters.

Google said it was blindsided by the decision, only having found out about it on Friday, two weeks after the hearing.”As a result, we were not able to make our case directly to the judge,” Google spokeswoman Rachel Whetstone said.

For more information, click here.