Google & France at an Impasse

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A move to require Internet search engines to pay media sites for displaying links to their content has Google threatening to bypass France's media sites from its search results, Agence France-Presse reports.

Boasting that it directs more than 4 billion clicks to French media Internet sites, Google argued that its own survival would be imperiled by having to pay for content. But Aurelie Filippetti, France's Culture Minister, is among a chorus of government officials who back legislation requiring search engines to pony up for content.

Taxing online advertising revenues was rejected by French lawmakers last year.