Google changes spam policy in EU to avert antitrust fine

Alphabet's Google announced on Friday that it would modify its spam policy in the European Union to avoid potential antitrust penalties. The company faced scrutiny from EU regulators after publishers raised concerns about its site reputation abuse policy, which targeted the practice of publishing third-party pages on a site to manipulate search rankings, a tactic known as parasite SEO.

The European Union noted that its observations indicated Google's spam policy was demoting the websites and content of news media and other publishers in Google search results, particularly when those sites featured material from commercial partners. Effective from August 30, Google stated that any manual actions taken to penalize sites would no longer apply to users in the 27 European Economic Area nations, including Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein (collectively referred to as the European Economic Area).

The company clarified that this change would not extend beyond the European Economic Area. The European Commission, serving as the EU's competition enforcer, initiated an investigation under the Digital Markets Act due to concerns over this policy. Violations of DMA regulations could result in fines amounting to up to 10% of the company's global annual earnings.