Google is offering the EU a deal to avoid fines in the news search case
7 May 12:54
Google has proposed changes to how news results are displayed in its search engine to avoid a fine from the European Union. This was reported by Bloomberg and Reuters, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
“The document states that Google has proposed changes to comply with the DMA, giving stakeholders until next week to submit feedback. The company stated that it is cooperating constructively with the Commission.”
According to the reports, Google has proposed changing the rules for displaying news results in its search engine.
Specifically, the company is prepared to amend its anti-spam policy (the so-called site reputation abuse policy), which previously led to lower rankings for news sites.
“Our priority is to ensure that search results are useful and convenient for users and protect them from deceptive practices, such as parasitic SEO spam, which undermine the web,” a Google representative said.
This move could help Google avoid an EU antitrust fine.
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What led up to this
The American tech giant came under scrutiny from EU regulators after publishers complained about its policy regarding the misuse of websites’ reputations. The policy targets the practice of publishing third-party pages on a website to manipulate search engine rankings by leveraging the host site’s ranking signals—a practice commonly known as parasitic SEO.
Last November, the European Commission launched an investigation into Google, suspecting that the company, under the guise of fighting spam, was preventing publishers from legitimately monetizing their content.
The Commission reported that Google demotes news sites in Google Search results if they publish commercial content or partner content (such as advertising or sponsored material). This policy reduces media traffic, restricts their business, and effectively forces them to change their monetization model.
Violations of the European Digital Markets Act (DMA), of which Google is accused, could result in a fine of up to 10% of the company’s total annual global revenue.
Google, owned by Alphabet Inc., also still faces potential fines in other DMA investigations, including allegations of unfairly favoring its own services in its search business and preventing app developers from directing consumers to offers outside the Play Store. However, some of these cases have stalled due to political sensitivity, particularly concerns about worsening relations with the U.S., Bloomberg reports.
Google is an American multinational corporation that was reorganized on October 15, 2015, into the international conglomerate Alphabet Inc. It is a company within the Alphabet holding group that invests in internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Google maintains and develops a range of internet services and products and generates revenue primarily from advertising through its Ads program. It is considered one of the “Big Four” tech companies alongside Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. Google’s search engine accounts for over 60% of the global market. Every day, it processes about 50 million search queries and indexes over 8 billion web pages
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