News agency Agence France-Presse entered a ménage à deux today with Google en lieu of a $17.5m lawsuit over its news stories appearing on Google News.

Google will pay to use AFP content that drives online traffic to AFP affiliates. Financial details of the dénouement were not disclosed.

The contretemps began in March, 2005 when AFP filed suit against Google for using headlines, photographs and news summaries without permission.

Google made a similar concordat with the Associated Press in August. However, AP content has not been used in Google's news aggregator yet. The announcement at the time suggested that AP content will be applied in a future Google product.

AFP's director for strategic planning, Eric Scherer, told Business Week that Google will make use of AFP news in "novel ways" in the future. However, he would not reveal any details of their sleeping arrangements.

Which is one way of saving up a scoop for the future. ®

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