In Europe, Orange is an almost omnipresent organization – the third-biggest mobile operator and the second-biggest broadband Internet provider, according to its own stats.  And so it seems MySpace has made an interesting compromise by entering into an advertising and content partnership with Orange in France today.

France is considering a proposal to tax online advertising revenues earned by companies such as Google.

The proposal would extend to other companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo and would put an end to "enrichment without any limit or compensation," newspaper Liberation quoted Guillaume Cerutti, one of the supporters of the proposal, as saying.

The Google Books project suffered a significant blow today in France as a Paris court found Google guilty of copyright violations.  The search giant’s been ordered to stop scanning books, remove information from its database, and pay some hefty fines.

European online Christmas shopping season got off to a strong start this year in the U.K., France and Germany, according to a new report from comScore.

Visits to retail sites were up 18 percent during the first week of November compared to an average week during the prior two months, and increased even more throughout the month to reach a 41 percent growth rate during the week ending November 29.

France saw solid gains, resulting in the same 41 percent growth rate during the last week of November, while Germany showed slight lower growth at 16 percent.

France saw widespread growth in online video viewing during the past year, as audience size and video engagement both increased significantly, according to a new report from comScore.

The number of online video viewers in France increased 36 percent to 34.6 million, while the number videos viewed grew 141 percent to 5.4 billion. The average time spent viewing videos online nearly doubled to 11.7 hours per viewer in September.

If a French court has its way, eBay will soon have to fork over $2.6 million.  The fine stems from a ban on the sale (or purchase) of LVMH goods, and actually ties to a case that ended in eBay being told to pay LVMH $61 million.

French publishers had their first day in court today as a case concerning Google Books began.  Various organizations are clamoring for Google to stop scanning manuscripts, and the plaintiffs are seeking about $22 million in compensation, too.

The La Martiniere publishing group originally brought its case against Google several years ago.  Since then, the Syndicat National de l’Edition and the Societe des gens de letters have offered their support.

Google’s scaled back its literature-related plans in the hopes of not angering publishers and regulators in Europe; the company has said that it won’t add content to Google Books if it’s available for sale on that continent.  At least a few important critics seem unimpressed, however, as France is objecting in a U.S. court. 

The French Senate is considering a revised version of an Internet piracy law that was ruled unconstitutional last month, despite backing by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

France’s highest constitutional court has struck down part of a law backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy that was aimed at targeting Internet pirates.

The law was set up as a three-strikes system for copyright violators, who would first receive an email warning, then a letter and ultimately lose their Internet access if they were caught a third time.

A French court has ruled in favor of eBay in a case brought cosmetics company L’Oreal over the sale of counterfeit goods on the site.

L’Oreal was suing eBay for $6.97 million (3.5 million euros) claiming the company was not doing enough to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods posted on its auction and sale sites.

French lawmakers approved a plan on Tuesday to cut off Internet access to those who illegally download content.

The French National Assembly passed the bill by a vote of 296 to 223 and the measure will go before the Senate for final approval on Wednesday.

The legislation is one of the toughest ever drafted against Internet piracy around the world, it would penalize those who pirate music and movies by shutting down their Internet access for up to a year.

In February, more than 35 million people in France accessed the Internet from a home or work computer, up 19 percent over the previous year, according to comScore.

French Internet users spent a combined total of 932 million hours online in February, an average of 27 hours per person. Instant messaging was the most popular activity with total share of time spent at 14.3 percent, followed by social networking at 5.7 percent. Together the two categories accounted for one out of every five minutes spent online during the month.

Microsoft didn’t have too bad a month of search in January. As Doug reported, comScore had Live Search’s market share rising from 8.3 to 8.5 percent.

Facebook has been making a lot of efforts to expand internationally, and that continues today with the promise of a new team in France starting with one guy.

Okay that may have been a bit over dramatic, what I meant is that LinkedIn is now accessible en Français. Oo-La-La. A few of the LinkedIn employees put together the following video to welcome the new French site users.

Given the economy’s current condition, most people are cutting out random trips to the local grocery store, never mind overseas vacations.  So as non-millionaires should agree, this makes it all the more interesting that Google has released additional Street View photos taken in France.

Talk about adding insult to injury.  Even as rumors spread about another round of layoffs at Yahoo, the company has created a batch of ultra-enviable positions by opening a research center in Grenoble, France.

French film fans are illegally downloading more movies than they pay to see in theaters, according to a new study.

Alpha, a movie industry group that fights piracy, commissioned the study to examine the number of films downloaded on the Internet via P2P file sharing with movie ticket sales.

Auctions of fake Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH) goods that a French tribunal believed eBay should have prevented resulted in a verdict against the online marketplace.

In the UK, Germany, and France the Internet has about double the influence of television when it comes to consumer decision making according to the Digital Influence Index, a study done by Fleishman-Hillard and Harris Interactive.

The study found that consumers use the Internet in a number of ways to make decisions. Consumers are more likely to seek opinions of others by visiting social media and product rating sites when making choices that have a major personal impact.