Google has agreed to pay more than $40 million to South African media outlets, many of which are struggling in the digital age, the country's competition authority announced Thursday, after accusing the Californian giant of discriminating against local media.

The American company, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has accepted funding of 688 million rand ($40.4 million, €34.8 million), the South African competition commission said in a final report following a 16-month investigation, which revealed that Google searches favored international news at the expense of local media.

In February, the commission recommended that Google pay up to $27 million per year for five years. The agreement with the American giant provides for a single payment of $40.4 million.

"Google will also introduce new tools for users to prioritize local news sources, provide technical assistance to improve website performance, and share enhanced audience data," the commission added on Thursday. Its subsidiary YouTube has also agreed to support monetization, which allows for the generation of direct revenue from content published on a channel, the competition authority stated.

Google and YouTube have also pledged to remove algorithmic biases that favor foreign media, according to the same source.

The directive can be appealed, the commission clarified.

Similar funding agreements have been concluded by Google in countries such as Taiwan, Canada, Australia and the United States in response to increasing government pressure for more regulation.

In South Africa, the Chinese platform TikTok has agreed to provide new tools, including allowing media outlets to insert links into videos in order to monetize external content.

The X platform, owned by South African billionaire Elon Musk, has not reached an agreement in that country and has been ordered to make all its monetization programs available to local publishers and to organize training workshops.

Meanwhile, the European Union announced on Thursday the launch of a new investigation targeting Google, suspected of penalizing certain news sites in its search engine results, which the American group denies.

By opening this new investigation, under its flagship legislation on digital markets, the DMA, the EU is showing its determination to regulate tech giants, including American champions in the sector, despite threats from US President Donald Trump who had criticized the heavy European fine imposed on Google in early September (2.95 billion euros).