According to a recent article by french news website, Le Figaro, the House of Parliament has voted in favor of an amendment to a bill which states that search engines should not only show three more rival companies on their homepage, but also reveal their search algorithms to their users in order to ensure the fairness of the searches. This was specifically targeted at … *drum roll* Google – in an effort to cease their monopoly on search.
In France, in the event of non-compliance with the new regulations, companies may have to withstand penalties of up to 10% of global turnover. Furthermore, the Senate also adopted another amendment to the above-specified law which states that one of the three rivals that the search engine has to display in the homepage should be located in France.
We’ll have to see how this ultimately plays out between France and Google – but I don’t see Google giving up their precious algorithm data that easily.