EU Probes Google Antispam Policy on News Publishers

The European Commission launched an investigation Thursday into Google, examining whether the tech giant's antispam policies unfairly demote content from news publishers in search results, potentially harming their revenues amid challenges in the media industry.

The probe, conducted under the bloc's Digital Markets Act, focuses on Google's site reputation abuse policy, which targets practices known as parasite SEO. This involves third parties paying established websites, including news outlets, to host promotional content designed to exploit the host's high search rankings. Officials said the policy appears to penalize legitimate monetization strategies, such as sponsored articles or affiliate partnerships, by reducing visibility of affected pages. "We are concerned that Google's policies do not allow news publishers to be treated in a fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory manner in its search results," said Teresa Ribera, the Commission's executive vice president for competition. She added that the investigation aims to ensure publishers "are not losing out on important revenues at a difficult time for the industry."

Google, in a blog post, defended the policy as essential for...