Google won't pay for news links under new French law

LONDON (AP) - Google says it will tweak how it shows previews for news stories in France but won't pay license fees to publishers when the country brings in new European Union copyright rules.

The U.S. tech giant said Wednesday it will stop showing a snippet of text or a small thumbnail photo for news results by European publishers seen in France.

The change will take effect in late October, when a new French law comes into force following an EU directive to modernize copyright rules.

One of the more controversial parts of the EU directive was a requirement that search engines pay for offering up snippets of news articles.

Offering no snippets of the story means Google can avoid paying fees to publishers, unless it gets permission to show them for free.