Poland’s competition authority has formally charged four companies in the Google group over the way the technology company negotiated payments with Polish press publishers for using their content.
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, or UOKiK, announced the charges on 5 October against Alphabet Inc, Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited and Google Poland.
The regulator suspects Google may have abused a dominant market position by failing to provide publishers with information they needed to assess whether proposed payments for their journalism were appropriate.
The proceedings concern the use of press content in Google Search, Google News and Google Discover.
They do not amount to a finding that Google broke competition law, and no fine has been imposed.
UOKiK says publishers lacked data needed to negotiate
The central issue is not simply whether Google offered publishers too little money.
UOKiK says Google proposed remuneration without providing information that would allow publishers properly to test the calculations behind those offers.
According to the regulator, Google did not sufficiently explain how it used press publications, what revenues it generated from that use, what parameters went into its calculations or provide documentation allowing publishers to verify the assumptions.
That, UOKiK argues, may have created an information imbalance in which publishers could neither properly assess Google’s proposal nor construct their own evidence-based counter-offer.
For a dominant company, that distinction matters under competition law.
Possessing a dominant market position is not itself prohibited. The concern arises if a company uses that market power to impose unfair conditions or restrict effective competition.
UOKiK’s case is therefore testing whether Google’s position in internet search gave it the ability to turn what should have been commercial negotiations into an effectively one-sided process.
Google says it already has licensing agreements in Poland
Google disputes the wider implication that it has failed to engage commercially with the Polish media sector.
In a statement reported by Reuters following the announcement, Google said it was reviewing UOKiK’s decision and pointed to licensing agreements covering more than 70 publications in Poland.
The company also said it had licensing agreements with thousands of news sites across Europe.
Those agreements do not, however, resolve the competition question raised by UOKiK.
The regulator says Google has not concluded agreements governing the use of press publications and associated remuneration with the majority of Polish publishers, and its investigation concerns the conditions under which negotiations were conducted.
Poland gave publishers new rights in 2024
The dispute stems from a major change to Polish copyright law that took effect on 20 September 2024.
The reform implemented the EU’s Digital Single Market copyright directive, or DSM Directive, and introduced a neighbouring right for press publishers covering online use of their publications by digital platforms.
The 2024 legislation implementing the DSM framework created the Polish legal basis for publishers to seek payment when qualifying online services reproduce or make their press publications available.
The underlying European framework is intended to strengthen publishers’ ability to negotiate with online platforms whose services use journalism and extracts from news content.
Poland added an important domestic enforcement mechanism to that system.
UKE can step in when negotiations fail
The Office of Electronic Communications, or UKE, has a separate role from the competition authority.
UOKiK investigates whether competition law has been breached.
UKE can become involved in determining the payment itself.
Under the statutory process, negotiations begin directly between publishers and digital platforms. When setting remuneration, the parties are expected to consider factors including revenue generated by the platform from use of the publications, including advertising revenue, the type of press material involved and the period for which the right is used.
If the parties fail to reach an agreement within three months of an offer being made, either side can ask the UKE president to initiate mediation.
If mediation does not produce an agreement — or in certain circumstances does not take place — a party can ask UKE to issue a decision establishing the amount of remuneration or the method used to calculate it.
UKE therefore has a potentially decisive role in the commercial dispute.
UOKiK does not.
The competition authority explicitly says its current investigation is not an assessment of whether the payment rate proposed by Google is too high or too low.
Its case concerns the conduct of the negotiations and whether publishers had access to the information required for those negotiations to function fairly.
Why the information matters
The Polish remuneration rules themselves help explain why UOKiK considers access to financial information important.
Negotiations may take into account the revenues obtained by an online service from reproducing or making press publications available, including associated advertising revenue over the previous two full financial years.
Publishers cannot easily evaluate those factors if the platform alone possesses key data about how the content is used and monetised.
That is the basis of UOKiK’s information-asymmetry concern.
The authority alleges that publishers depend on Google as an important route for reaching readers while lacking both equivalent negotiating power and comparable information about the economic value generated from their content.
Whether those circumstances amount to an unlawful abuse of dominance is what the proceedings must now determine.
Four Google companies face the proceedings
UOKiK has brought charges against four separate entities within the group.
Alphabet Inc is the ultimate parent company.
Google LLC previously operated and managed Google Search in the European Economic Area and is involved in advertising services.
Google Ireland Limited currently operates and manages the search service within the EEA.
Google Poland sells online advertising space in Poland.
UOKiK says the responsibility of each individual company will be determined during the proceedings.
That means the announcement should not be treated as a finding that all four entities are legally responsible for the suspected infringement.
Maximum penalty can reach 10% of turnover
Abuse of a dominant position can carry a substantial financial sanction under Polish competition law.
UOKiK says the maximum penalty can reach 10% of an undertaking’s turnover.
That figure is a statutory ceiling, not the fine Google currently faces and not an indication that a 10% penalty will ultimately be imposed.
First, UOKiK would have to conclude the administrative proceedings and establish an infringement.
The authority must also determine the responsibility of the individual Google companies covered by the case.
At this stage, there is no final infringement decision and no financial penalty.
The case matters beyond Google
The outcome could have wider commercial significance for Poland’s media industry.
Digital platforms have become major routes through which readers discover journalism, while search results, news aggregators and other services can display headlines, extracts and other elements without users necessarily visiting the publisher’s own website.
That relationship affects traffic, advertising income and the commercial value publishers can derive from their journalism.
Poland’s 2024 copyright reform was intended partly to give publishers a stronger legal basis for negotiating compensation with platforms.
If UOKiK ultimately concludes that dominant platforms must provide significantly more information during those negotiations, the impact could extend beyond the amount paid in any individual Google agreement.
It could influence the bargaining process itself — including the data platforms are expected to disclose when proposing payment terms.
For international publishing groups operating in Poland, the proceedings will also be relevant to how the EU-derived publisher right is enforced at national level.
Separate EU investigation focuses on Google’s AI services
Google is also facing a separate European Commission investigation involving publisher content, but the two cases should not be conflated.
The European Commission opened a formal antitrust investigation in December 2025 into Google’s use of online content for artificial-intelligence services.
That EU investigation includes concerns over whether publisher material has been used for services such as AI Overviews and AI Mode without appropriate compensation and without giving publishers an effective ability to refuse that use.
The Polish case is different.
UOKiK says its proceedings concern the use of publishers’ material in conventional Google Search results, Google News and Discover, and specifically the way remuneration negotiations were conducted.
The authority says the Polish proceedings are independent from the Commission’s AI investigation and that their separation was coordinated with Brussels before UOKiK opened its formal case.
What happens next
The case now moves through UOKiK’s administrative competition-law procedure.
Google will have the opportunity to respond to the allegations, while the authority will examine evidence and determine whether the suspected conduct amounted to an abuse of dominant position.
There is no fixed outcome implied by the decision to bring charges.
For publishers, meanwhile, the copyright remuneration mechanism remains separate. Negotiations can continue, and the statutory UKE procedure remains available where the parties cannot agree.
The significant development on 5 October is therefore not that Poland has ordered Google to pay a particular amount.
It is that the Polish competition regulator is formally examining whether Google’s market power affected how that amount could be negotiated in the first place.
