jatiN mahindrA doT coM

France May Tax Google Ad Revenue

France is considering a proposal to tax online advertising revenues earned by companies such as Google. The proposal would extend to other companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo and would put an end to "enrichment without any limit or compensation," newspaper Liberation quoted Guillaume Cerutti, one of the supporters of the proposal, as saying. Under the proposal, the revenue collected from...

Google Books Suffers Defeat In French Court

The Google Books project suffered a significant blow today in France as a Paris court found Google guilty of copyright violations.  The search giant’s been ordered to stop scanning books, remove information from its database, and pay some hefty fines. French publishers brought the lawsuit against Google because they objected to the company scanning (and sharing) books without their permission. ...

European Online Holiday Shopping Off To Strong Start

European online Christmas shopping season got off to a strong start this year in the U.K., France and Germany, according to a new report from comScore. Visits to retail sites were up 18 percent during the first week of November compared to an average week during the prior two months, and increased even more throughout the month to reach a 41 percent growth rate during the week ending November 29. France...

YouTube Most Popular Video Site In France

France saw widespread growth in online video viewing during the past year, as audience size and video engagement both increased significantly, according to a new report from comScore. The number of online video viewers in France increased 36 percent to 34.6 million, while the number videos viewed grew 141 percent to 5.4 billion. The average time spent viewing videos online nearly doubled to 11.7 hours...

eBay Fined $2.6 Million Over LVMH Sales

If a French court has its way, eBay will soon have to fork over $2.6 million.  The fine stems from a ban on the sale (or purchase) of LVMH goods, and actually ties to a case that ended in eBay being told to pay LVMH $61 million. LVMH, which is the entity behind luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Tag Heuer, and De Beers, won a major case against eBay in June of last year.  LVMH claimed to...

French Case Over Google Books Begins

French publishers had their first day in court today as a case concerning Google Books began.  Various organizations are clamoring for Google to stop scanning manuscripts, and the plaintiffs are seeking about $22 million in compensation, too. The La Martiniere publishing group originally brought its case against Google several years ago.  Since then, the Syndicat National de l’Edition...

Google Books Backpedals

Google’s scaled back its literature-related plans in the hopes of not angering publishers and regulators in Europe; the company has said that it won’t add content to Google Books if it’s available for sale on that continent.  At least a few important critics seem unimpressed, however, as France is objecting in a U.S. court.  Originally, Google was just concerned about what...