{
  "id": 3903378,
  "title": "Google changes spam policy in EU to avert antitrust fine",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine-3903378",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-28T05:50:31.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Business Recorder",
    "slug": "business-recorder",
    "url": "https://www.brecorder.com/news/40436837/google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Alphabet's Google announced on Friday that it would modify its spam policy in the European Union in an effort to avoid potential antitrust penalties. The issue arose after publishers raised concerns over Google's site reputation abuse policy, which targeted the practice of publishing third-party pages on a site, known as parasite SEO, to manipulate search rankings. The European Union expressed concern that Google's policy was negatively impacting news media and other publishers' websites and content by lowering their search engine rankings when the sites included content from commercial partners. Google stated that starting August 30, any manual actions taken to demote sites within the European Economic Area (EEA) would not be applied to users in the 27 EU nations, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein. However, the policy would remain unchanged outside the EEA. The European Commission, acting as the EU's competition regulator, had initiated an investigation under the Digital Markets Act due to concerns about the policy. Violations of the DMA could result in fines of up to 10% of a company's global annual revenue.",
  "summary": "Alphabet’s Google on Friday said it had changed its spam policy in Europe to address EU concerns that could have resulted in an antitrust fine. The US tech giant found itself in EU regulators’ crosshairs after publishers complained about its site reputation abuse policy. It targets the practice of publishing third-party pages on a site in an attempt to abuse search rankings by taking advantage of…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 6,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Channel News Asia",
        "title": "Google changes spam policy in EU to avert antitrust fine",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine",
        "published": "2026-08-28T05:02:16.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Investing.com",
        "title": "Google changes spam policy in EU to avert antitrust fine",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine-3899251",
        "published": "2026-08-28T05:12:54.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Economic Times Tech",
        "title": "Google changes spam policy in EU to avert antitrust fine",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine-3901155",
        "published": "2026-08-28T05:34:09.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Seeking Alpha News",
        "title": "Google revises European spam policy to head off EU antitrust penalty",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/google-revises-european-spam-policy-to-head-off-eu-antitrust-penalty",
        "published": "2026-08-28T07:22:23.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Free Malaysia Today",
        "title": "Google changes spam policy in EU to avert antitrust fine",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine-3923615",
        "published": "2026-08-28T08:16:45.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}