Bundeskartellamt examines Google News Showcase

The Bundeskartellamt has initiated a proceeding against Alphabet Inc., Mountain View, USA, and its affiliates (“Google”) to examine under competition law the Google News Showcase service offered by the company. The examination is mainly based on the authority’s new competences under the new legal provisions applicable to large digital companies. In this respect it follows up on the proceeding against Google which the Bundeskartellamt initiated on 25 May 2021 to determine a paramount significance for competition across markets within the meaning of Section 19a of the German Competition Act, GWB (see press release of 25 May 2021). In the past months, apart from the proceeding against Google, the authority had already initiated proceedings against Facebook (see press release of 28 January 2021) and Amazon (see press release of 18 May 2021) based on this new competition law tool.
Google News Showcase is a Google service which offers the possibility to present news content from publishers in a prominent and more detailed way. Google has made the service available to a number of German publishers.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “Cooperating with Google can be an attractive option for publishers and other news providers and offer consumers new or improved information services. However, it must be ensured that this will not result in discrimination between individual publishers. In addition, Google’s strong position in providing access to end customers must not lead to a situation where competing services offered by publishers or other news providers are squeezed out of the market. There must be an adequate balance between the rights and obligations of the content providers participating in Google’s programme.”

On 1st October 2020 Google had announced the launch of its Google News Showcase service in Germany. According to Google, the service presents high-quality journalistic content for which Google pays licensing fees. After 20 media companies initially participated in the service with 50 publications, the service has meanwhile been expanded to cover further content. News Showcase focuses on “story panels” which were initially integrated in the Google News app and can now also be found in Google News on the desktop. Google has announced that it will soon also show the panels in the general Google search results. The story panels are showcase boxes in which photos, titles and further content appear in a condensed form under the highlighted publisher's logo. The participating publishers thus have various options for presenting their content in a more prominent and detailed way than would be possible in the general listing. For its News Showcase Google also purchases paywalled articles from individual publishers and offers them to its readers free of charge.

Acting upon a complaint from Corint Media the Bundeskartellamt is now examining in this proceeding whether the announced integration of the Google News Showcase service into Google’s general search function is likely to constitute self-preferencing or an impediment to the services offered by competing third parties. The authority is also examining whether the relevant contractual conditions include unreasonable conditions to the detriment of the participating publishers and, in particular, make it disproportionately difficult for them to enforce the ancillary copyright for press publishers introduced by the German Bundestag and Bundesrat in May 2021. It is also important to examine how the conditions for access to Google’s News Showcase service are defined.

In January 2021, the 10th amendment to the German Competition Act (GWB Digitalisation Act) came into force. A key new provision (Section 19a GWB) enables the authority to intervene earlier and more effectively, in particular against the practices of large digital companies. In a two-step procedure, the Bundeskartellamt can prohibit companies which are of paramount significance for competition across markets from engaging in anti-competitive practices.