The conspiracy touched the wallet. Google cut off access to the controversial site France Evening to its advertising network, thus depriving the news site of part of its income due, according to the advertising giant, to repeated violations of its rules on disinformation, the American group said on Friday.
Xavier Azalbert, director of the publication of France Evening, confirmed to AFP on Friday the withdrawal, in recent days, of their “advertising service” on Google. This measure constitutes “an attack on freedom of expression” and “undermines the viability of a press organ”, he criticized.
The publication’s lawyer is studying “a direct citation to the criminal court for discrimination consisting in refusing the supply of a good or a service” likely to “result in an infringement of freedom of expression”, added the official. of France Evening.
“We have warned France Evening before taking any action “
Asked by AFP, Google said it had applied its regulation, which aims to protect brands “against the dissemination of their advertisements alongside dangerous and misleading content”. “We have warned France Evening before taking action, asking them to remedy persistent violations of our rules, ”said Google. France Evening denied having been warned.
This decision comes a few days after the broadcast on France 2 of a number of the show. Additional Inquiry, titled “Fake News, the Money Machine”. “The site seems to have been demonetized shortly before or after our investigation. France Evening was one of the sites on which we challenged Google, ”wrote journalist Aude Favre, co-author of the report, on Twitter. Google also banned the American site at the end of August The Gateway Pundit, while his advertising network provided him with an estimated income of 200,000 euros per month.
There are precedents
France Evening had already been dereferenced from Google News in January 2021 and his YouTube account (owned by Google) had been suspended. The media, which contests these decisions, was dismissed in summary proceedings on June 2 by the Paris commercial court.
At the same time, the site accused of relaying conspiratorial theses had to comply with the re-examination of its status as a site of “political and general information” (IPG). This approval was finally granted at the beginning of April by the joint committee for publications and press agencies (CPPAP), responsible for recognizing the quality of the online press service. On Friday, the site was still showing some ads, especially thanks to the Outbrain automated ad network.