It will potentially be the first time that the effectiveness of the product is impacted by the disclosure. It depends on what the factors are in Google's algorithm, of course, but having to disclose them potentially opens up Google to a whole lot more webspam. If that happened, they would need to fall back more heavily on the "difficult to fake" (eg. reputable links) factors rather than the "everyone can fake" (eg. optimal pattern of keywords on page) factors.

In practice it may negatively impact on the quality of search results, even though in theory their algorithm including more "difficult to fake" factors should result in it being more durable.

Not only this, but I'd think their current, exact ranking algorithm would rank pretty high on their list of important trade secrets to protect.

If a competitor gets ahold of their exact ranking algorithm, that's a huge piece of the formula for building a search engine that is as good as Google Search at finding what someone's looking for.

Absolutly correct, but there is also much more too this, there is page layout and look. There is speed of results depended on ability to trawl and return answers. There are complimentary platforms holing to their ecosystem. There is information they have access to only known to google from past searches or alternate platforms. There are masses of manual non algorithmic overrides. There is simple inertia of typing Google into the address bar for many.

Yes giving up the source algorithm would be a loss. Google have seen this coming for years and have been building the moat so even this information shared wouldn't really help a competitor take any significant chunk of their business in the short to medium term.

Does the bill require that the algorithm be made public? Or just made available for government experts to inspect?

If it's not public, then this problem doesn't exist.

Sure, it'll stay secret. Entirely within the confines of the French government.

Just like the output of the recording devices they installed on Air France planes in business class. Those were never turned over to French companies.

Unfortunately, refusing to comply with the government because you don't trust it is not supported under the law.

Sure it is; Google could stop doing business in France, and direct all traffic from France to a landing page saying that the French government has imposed restrictions they're not willing to comply with, so they're choosing to stop accepting traffic from France, and that you might consider contacting your government representatives if you want more information.

That's compliance with the law.

Although France doesn't exactly hold the same leverage as China when it comes to market size...

It is not in Google's interest to flash the true power balance here by cutting off France anyway. They couldn't care less about french revenue, but it would be a global PR disaster, likely resulting in new EU-wide regulations that would then actually hurt Google.

Ah that's a really interesting part of the picture - Google clearly doesn't pay adequate tax on the sales it makes in the EU.

Google are pretty obviously not paying tax like a normal company. To put that more explicitly, they are probably committing massive tax fraud, taking billions in local money and not paying tax on it... that isn't unusual for a mega corporation, and they need local government to continue cooperating. So, the UK gets a big Google office, it's government keeps quiet. I guess France needs one too...

China has 66M google users, while France has 44M. However, if we split HK google users from mainland Google users, it would be pretty clear that Google is toast in China just like Excite in the US. There are a lot of people in China. Only about half of those use the Internet, and only a small percentage of those want to consume silicon valley internet product. People say excitable stuff about the size of the Chinese market but forget that customes are only customers if they are buying your stuff.

s/want to consume/are willing and able to work around government censorship to consume/

Google explicitly decided not to play ball in mainland China years ago. It will be interesting to see the reaction if this goes through-- both exposing ranking algorithms and pulling out of France seem pretty improbable.