EU Probes Google Over Anti-Spam Policy Impact on Publishers

Brussels has turned the spotlight on Google, opening a formal antitrust investigation into the tech giant’s anti-spam policy that critics say is squeezing revenues from European news publishers. The probe, announced Thursday, comes amid mounting complaints that Google’s rules are hurting legitimate monetization methods used by media websites.

The heart of the issue lies in Google's site reputation abuse policy. Introduced in March last year, the policy targets “parasite SEO,” a tactic where third-party content is published on a site to exploit its ranking signals. While Google says the policy aims to keep search results fair and prevent manipulation, publishers argue it punishes legitimate collaborations and advertising partnerships.

EU officials say their monitoring suggests news sites and other publishers are being demoted in search rankings if their content comes from commercial partners. “We are concerned that Google’s policies do not allow news publishers to be treated in a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory manner in search results,” said the European Commission’s antitrust chief, Teresa Ribera.

Several major media bodies, including the European Publishers Council, the European Newspaper Publishers Association, and the European Magazine Media Association, have raised similar concerns. German media company ActMeraki filed a formal complaint in April, claiming the rules penalize standard business practices used to generate revenue online.

Google, however, has defended its policy, arguing it is essential to maintain quality search results. Pandu Nayak, Google Search’s chief scientist, pointed out that similar claims were previously dismissed by a German court, which found the policy reasonable and consistently applied.

The EU is investigating under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to curb the influence of Big Tech. Violations could carry penalties of up to 10% of a company’s global annual revenue, a potentially hefty fine for the world’s most dominant search engine.