By , , COLOMBIER-SAUGNIEU, France (Reuters) - At his veterinary practice near the French city of Lyon one morning in June, Gilles Renevier prepared to perform a castration on a poodle. When not attending to animals, he turns to his other role: attempting to neuter the expansion ambitions of Amazon.com Inc.Renevier leads a group of local volunteers that has succeeded in suspending construction at a site that campaigners and a senior local official say is earmarked to become a logistics hub for the online retailer. Building at the site is on hold while a legal challenge the vet helped...…By , , COLOMBIER-SAUGNIEU, France (Reuters) - At his veterinary practice near the French city of Lyon one morning in June, Gilles Renevier prepared to perform a castration on a poodle. When not attending to animals, he turns to his other role: attempting to neuter the expansion ambitions of Amazon.com Inc.Renevier leads a group of local volunteers that has succeeded in suspending construction at a site that campaigners and a senior local official say is earmarked to become a logistics hub for the online retailer. Building at the site is on hold while a legal challenge the vet helped...WW…

By , PARIS (Reuters) - Apple was given a boost on Wednesday as France’s antitrust watchdog rejected advertisers’ requests to suspend the iPhone maker’s upcoming privacy feature, but it still faces a probe into whether it unfairly favours its own products and services.Apple’s new ‘App Tracking Transparency’ feature allows users to block advertisers from tracking them across different applications.The U.S. tech giant says it defends data privacy rights, but it faces criticism from Facebook, app developers and startups whose business models rely on advertising tracking.French groups IAB...…By , PARIS (Reuters) - Apple was given a boost on Wednesday as France’s antitrust watchdog rejected advertisers’ requests to suspend the iPhone maker’s upcoming privacy feature, but it still faces a probe into whether it unfairly favours its own products and services.Apple’s new ‘App Tracking Transparency’ feature allows users to block advertisers from tracking them across different applications.The U.S. tech giant says it defends data privacy rights, but it faces criticism from Facebook, app developers and startups whose business models rely on advertising tracking.French groups IAB...WW…

By , PARIS (Reuters) - A fire at a French cloud services firm has disrupted millions of websites, knocking out government agencies’ portals, banks, shops, news websites and taking out a chunk of the .FR web space, according to internet monitors.Slideshow The fire, which broke out on Wednesday shortly after midnight at OVHcloud, destroyed one of four data centres in Strasbourg, in eastern France, and damaged another, the company said.There was no immediate explanation provided for the blaze, which erupted just two days after the French cloud computing firm kicked off plans for an initial...…By , PARIS (Reuters) - A fire at a French cloud services firm has disrupted millions of websites, knocking out government agencies’ portals, banks, shops, news websites and taking out a chunk of the .FR web space, according to internet monitors.Slideshow The fire, which broke out on Wednesday shortly after midnight at OVHcloud, destroyed one of four data centres in Strasbourg, in eastern France, and damaged another, the company said.There was no immediate explanation provided for the blaze, which erupted just two days after the French cloud computing firm kicked off plans for an initial...WW…

By , PARIS (Reuters) - A fire at a French cloud services firm has disrupted millions of websites, knocking out government agencies’ portals, banks, shops, news websites and taking out a chunk of the .FR web space, according to internet monitors.Slideshow The fire, which broke out on Wednesday shortly after midnight at OVHcloud, destroyed one of four data centres in Strasbourg, in eastern France, and damaged another, the company said.There was no immediate explanation provided for the blaze, which erupted just two days after the French cloud computing firm kicked off plans for an initial...…By , PARIS (Reuters) - A fire at a French cloud services firm has disrupted millions of websites, knocking out government agencies’ portals, banks, shops, news websites and taking out a chunk of the .FR web space, according to internet monitors.Slideshow The fire, which broke out on Wednesday shortly after midnight at OVHcloud, destroyed one of four data centres in Strasbourg, in eastern France, and damaged another, the company said.There was no immediate explanation provided for the blaze, which erupted just two days after the French cloud computing firm kicked off plans for an initial...WW…

By PARIS (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s Google has agreed to pay $76 million over three years to a group of 121 French news publishers to end a more than year-long copyright spat, documents seen by Reuters show.The agreement between Google and the Alliance de la presse d’information generale (APIG), a lobby group representing most major French publishers, was announced previously, but financial terms had not been disclosed.The move infuriated many other French outlets, which deemed it unfair and opaque. Publishers in other countries will scrutinize the French agreement, the highest-profile in...…By PARIS (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s Google has agreed to pay $76 million over three years to a group of 121 French news publishers to end a more than year-long copyright spat, documents seen by Reuters show.The agreement between Google and the Alliance de la presse d’information generale (APIG), a lobby group representing most major French publishers, was announced previously, but financial terms had not been disclosed.The move infuriated many other French outlets, which deemed it unfair and opaque. Publishers in other countries will scrutinize the French agreement, the highest-profile in...WW…

By PARIS (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s Google has agreed to pay $76 million over three years to a group of 121 French news publishers to end a more than year-long copyright spat, documents seen by Reuters show.The agreement between Google and the Alliance de la presse d’information generale (APIG), a lobby group representing most major French publishers, was announced previously, but financial terms had not been disclosed.The move infuriated many other French outlets, which deemed it unfair and opaque. Publishers in other countries will scrutinize the French agreement, the highest-profile in...…By PARIS (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s Google has agreed to pay $76 million over three years to a group of 121 French news publishers to end a more than year-long copyright spat, documents seen by Reuters show.The agreement between Google and the Alliance de la presse d’information generale (APIG), a lobby group representing most major French publishers, was announced previously, but financial terms had not been disclosed.The move infuriated many other French outlets, which deemed it unfair and opaque. Publishers in other countries will scrutinize the French agreement, the highest-profile in...WW…

By PARIS (Reuters) - Google and a French publishers’ lobby said on Thursday they had agreed to a copyright framework for the U.S. tech giant to pay news publishers for content online, in a first for Europe.The move paves the way for individual licensing agreements for French publications, some of which have seen revenues drop with the rise of the Internet and declines in print circulation.The deal, which Google describes as a sustainable way to pay publishers, is likely to be closely watched by other platforms such as Facebook, a lawyer involved in the talks said.Facebook was not...…By PARIS (Reuters) - Google and a French publishers’ lobby said on Thursday they had agreed to a copyright framework for the U.S. tech giant to pay news publishers for content online, in a first for Europe.The move paves the way for individual licensing agreements for French publications, some of which have seen revenues drop with the rise of the Internet and declines in print circulation.The deal, which Google describes as a sustainable way to pay publishers, is likely to be closely watched by other platforms such as Facebook, a lawyer involved in the talks said.Facebook was not...WW…

By PARIS (Reuters) - Google must open talks with publishers in France about paying to use their content, an appeals court confirmed on Thursday, paving the way for an industry-wide deal in the country.The ruling may reverberate outside France, as it compels Google to sit down with publishers and news agencies to find a way to remunerate them under the “neighbouring right” enshrined in revamped EU copyright rules, which allows publishers to demand a fee from online platforms for showing news snippets.“It’s a world first for such a case,” France’s antitrust chief Isabelle de Silva told...…By PARIS (Reuters) - Google must open talks with publishers in France about paying to use their content, an appeals court confirmed on Thursday, paving the way for an industry-wide deal in the country.The ruling may reverberate outside France, as it compels Google to sit down with publishers and news agencies to find a way to remunerate them under the “neighbouring right” enshrined in revamped EU copyright rules, which allows publishers to demand a fee from online platforms for showing news snippets.“It’s a world first for such a case,” France’s antitrust chief Isabelle de Silva told...WW…