A Paris court ordered Google on Wednesday (November 13th) to suspend a project that would have aimed to limit the visibility of certain news articles in search results.

The order was issued in response to a request by SEPM, a union representing the magazine’s staff in France. The union alleged that Google planned to launch a scheme to exclude some articles from publishers involved in a dispute over the rights to use online news content.

Google, according to the AFP news agency, described the project as a “time-limited experiment” aimed at evaluating how content from European publishers affects users’ experience on search engines.

In recent years, tech giants like Google have faced increasing pressure to compensate news providers for their content that appears in search results. To address these concerns, the European Union introduced a form of copyright law called “neighboring rights” law, giving media outlets the right to seek compensation for content used online.

France, where Google and SEPM have been in long-running negotiations, has been a testing ground for these rules. After initially resisting, both Google and Facebook agreed to pay some French media companies. However, the latest Paris court order requires Google “not to proceed with the testing” of its scheme, or face a possible fine of “€300,000 each”.

The SEPM trade union, which represents around 80 media groups, welcomed the ruling, saying it would “preserve the interests of the French media”. But Google expressed surprise at the SEPM’s opposition, claiming the project aimed to collect data because “independent administrative authorities and media publishers have asked us for more information on the impact of displaying news content on our search engine”.

Earlier this year, France’s competition authority fined Google 250 million euros ($263 million) for failing to meet specific commitments on neighboring rights. Google is not alone in these disputes; Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is also facing lawsuits from French publishers such as Le Monde and Le Figaro over similar payment issues.

(With contributions from agencies)