Italy: Issued ruling in Agcom Investigation into Microsoft for content renumeration owed to Gedi Gruppo Editoriale

On 24 July 2024, the Italian Communications Authority (Agcom) determined the fair compensation owed by Microsoft for the use of GEDI Gruppo Editoriale SpA's journalistic publications on the Bing search engine. The Authority assessed the economic proposals from both parties, finding them non-compliant with the established criteria. Consequently, Agcom calculated the compensation based on Microsoft's advertising revenues derived from the online use of GEDI's publications on the basis of factors including the number of online consultations, the publisher's market relevance, and adherence to self-regulation codes, among others, to determine the fair compensation. According to Agcom, this decision marks the first instance of the regulator applying content remuneration regulation to an information society service provider beyond media monitoring and press review companies.