Google has accepted to pay a fine of 1.1 million euros ($1.3 million) after French authorities found that the search engine exhibited misleading rankings for French hotels.

Google had previously used the official source ‘Atout France’ along with input from other hotel-industry websites in its algorithm to rank hotels from one to five stars.

After receiving complaints from hoteliers about Google’s rankings, the French governments fraud and competition agency commenced an investigation in 2019 and 2020. It stated that it was to monitor the nature and fairness of the information supplied by the platform across 7,500 establishments.

Google said that it has now made the “necessary changes to only reflect the official French star rating for hotels on Google Maps and Search.”

Another headline made by Google is that it has negotiated a deal with Australia’s Seven West Media that emerged as the country’s first major news outlet to attain a licensing deal with Google. The government pressures for a law that would force the search engine giant to compensate media companies for content.

At an earnings announcement on Tuesday 15th February, Seven, which owns a free-to-air television network and the main metro newspaper in the city of Perth, said it would provide content for Google’s News Showcase platform. Terms were not disclosed

The deal displays Seven separating from rivals News Corp and Nine Entertainment which have failed to arrive at an agreement with Google and instead backed laws, expected to be passed this week, where the government sets the online giant’s content fees if a private deal is missing.

Till now in Australia, only specialist online publishers and one regional newspaper have accomplished deals to gain payment for their content appearing on the new Google platform which went live in the country this month. Outside Australia, Reuters is among news outlets with similar Google deals.

“The negotiations with Google recognise the value of quality and original journalism throughout the country and, in particular, in regional areas,” said Seven West Chairman Kerry Stokes in a statement.

Google’s Australia CEO Mel Silva said the US company was “proud to support original, trusted, and quality journalism” by featuring Seven on its platform. In January, Silva told a parliamentary hearing Google would pull its search engine from Australia if the namely News Media Bargaining Code became law. A Google representative declined to comment on the impact of the Seven deal.

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