Google is rumoured to be launching a European version of YouTube where English is not the first language.According to reports, the search engine giant will announce its plans at a press conference in Paris next week.
If the rumoured proposals were to come to fruition, online retailers look set to take advantage of the new Europe-wide video site as they will have a larger audience with which to promote their products to.
Although the new site has not yet been confirmed, Google is said to be in talks with French public TV channel France 24.
A deal with France 24 could help Google to avoid potential copyright lawsuits - a decision which reflects the firm's move last week to expand the use of a copyright detection program for YouTube to include audio and video.
The search engine has been experimenting with copyright detector CopySense, with YouTube co-founder Steve Chen saying Google is working with "some major media companies" to test the application.
He added that "there's no guarantee of success".
France 24's assistant development director Camille Pascal insisted, however, that Google was not the only firm which France 24 was in talks with and that it was also considering deals with DailyMotion and other sharing sites.
Figures from comScore show that DailyMotion is currently France's most popular video-sharing site and in April enjoyed visits from 6.6 million visitors.
Across Europe as a whole, however, YouTube is well ahead with 60.6 million visitors, followed by DailyMotion with 14.5 million.
