Google refused to comply with a Belgian court decision that required the company to publish the original text of the ruling on its sites, calling that requirement "unnecessary" and "disproportionate," an Associated Press report said.
The report said that earlier this month, the Belgian Court of First Instance ordered the Internet search engine to stop publishing content from Belgian newspapers without permission or payment of fees.
Local newspaper editors argued that Google's popular news site, which featured small photos and excerpts from news reported elsewhere, stole traffic from individual newspapers' sites, the report said.
Google complied with the ruling, which threatened to impose daily fines of about $1.27 million against the Mountain View-based company, by removing the Belgian newspapers from its indexes.
The court also demanded that Google post the original text of the ruling on its Belgian sites, Google.be and news.google.be. The court was scheduled to rule on whether Google must publish the text or face fines of $634,000 per day.
The company would continue to defy the court's requirement that it post the ruling on its Belgian sites, an executive, quoted by the report, said.