Google, Inc. has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum of cash to French telecommunications provider Orange. The agreement came about after Google’s network of websites and data farms began to consume more than 50 percent of Orange’s overall mobile data traffic.
Speaking of the closed door agreement, Orange CEO Stephane Richard called the move a “balance of forces” that will offset Orange’s massive user base cost for more than 230 million subscribers.
Speaking to BFM Business TV, the Orange CEO said massive internet companies should be forced to cover traffic costs because of the sheer volume of data their customers consume.
While entities in the United States have managed to steer away from content provider fees, Google is currently battling with various providers in Europe as the company’s popularity continues to grow and more of its services eat through mobile data.
While some mobile data providers have asked for a tiered internet in which larger companies pay money to provider their data consuming services, such plans have been met with skepticism.
In what might be the strangest and greediest proposition in France, some newspaper publishers threatened to sue Google if the search giant linked to their content. Google fought back against those company’s, offering to remove their links upon request if new French laws were put into place.
Being removed from Google search results could result in millions of lost pageviews and millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Do you think content creators should have to pay for data even though consumers already pay monthly internet fees?
