France's competition watchdog has fined Google 250 million euros ( 272m) for breaching commitments to media companies on content licensing. The French Competition Authority said on Wednesday that it was imposing the fine as part of additional measures over a 2019 case that organisations representing French magazines and newspapers had lodged against the United States tech giant and other online platforms. The media outlets accused the tech companies of making billions from their content without sharing the revenue with those who gathered it. In 2021, the watchdog fined Google 500 million euros ( 592m) for failing to negotiate in good faith. The dispute appeared to be resolved in 2022 when the company dropped its appeal against the fine.

Google has been fined 250m ( 213m) by French regulators for breaching an agreement over paying media companies for reproducing their content online. France's competition watchdog said on Wednesday that it was fining the US tech company for breaches linked to intellectual property rules related to news media publishers. The regulator also cited concerns about Google's AI service. The competition authority said Google's AI-powered chatbot Bard – since rebranded as Gemini – was trained on content from publishers and news agencies without notifying them. The watchdog said in a statement that the fine was for "failing to respect commitments made in 2022" and accused Google of not negotiating in "good faith" with news publishers on how much to compensate them for use of their content.

The UK's competition watchdog has paved the way for a formal investigation into the partnership between Microsoft and ChatGPT developer OpenAI by asking for comments on the arrangement. The Competition and Markets Authority made the announcement on Friday after a bout of leadership and boardroom turmoil at OpenAI, which is based in San Francisco. The company was established as a non-profit entity whose board controls a commercial unit, in which Microsoft is the biggest investor. The CMA said "recent developments" had prompted the organisation to review whether the partnership had resulted in "an acquisition of control". Last month, OpenAI's board fired and then reappointed its chief executive, Sam Altman, and announced the formation of a new board. Microsoft now has a non-voting observer seat on the OpenAI board.

Sorcha O'Carroll, senior director for mergers at the CMA, said: "The invitation to comment is the first part of the CMA's information gathering process and comes in advance of launching any phase 1 investigation, which would only happen once the CMA has received the information it needs from the partnership parties."

People should not assume a positive outcome from the artificial intelligence boom, the UK's competition watchdog has warned, citing risks including a proliferation of false information, fraud and fake reviews as well as high prices for using the technology. The Competition and Markets Authority said people and businesses could benefit from a new generation of AI systems but dominance by entrenched players and flouting of consumer protection law posed a number of potential threats. The CMA made the warning in an initial review of foundation models, the technology that underpins AI tools such as the ChatGPT chatbot and image generators such as Stable Diffusion. The emergence of ChatGPT in particular has triggered a debate over the impact of generative AI – a catch-all term for tools that produce convincing text, image and voice outputs from typed human prompts – on the economy by eliminating white-collar jobs in areas such as law, IT and the media, as well as the potential for mass-producing disinformation targeting voters and consumers. The CMA chief executive, Sarah Cardell, said the speed at which AI was becoming a part of everyday life for people and businesses was "dramatic", with the potential for making millions of everyday tasks easier as well as boosting productivity – a measure of economic efficiency, or the amount of output generated by a worker for each hour worked.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority has announced it will take an active role in developing Google's plans to prevent websites tracking Chrome users. Under the proposals, the CMA would accept legally binding commitments from Google not to use its proposed replacements for tracking cookies, a set of technologies the search engine calls its Privacy Sandbox, in a way that would harm competition. It is thought to be the first time a competition regulator has been involved at such an early stage in the creation of a new technology. "The emergence of tech giants such as Google has presented competition authorities around the world with new challenges that require a new approach," said Andrea Coscelli, the CMA's chief executive. "That's why the CMA is taking a leading role in setting out how we can work with the most powerful tech firms to shape their behaviour and protect competition to the benefit of consumers."