{
  "id": 3923615,
  "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",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-08-28T08:16:45.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Free Malaysia Today",
    "slug": "free-malaysia-today-freemalays",
    "url": "https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/business/2026/08/28/google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Alphabet's Google announced changes to its spam policy in Europe on Friday, aiming to address EU concerns that could have led to an antitrust fine. The issue arose after publishers complained about the site reputation abuse policy, which targeted the practice of publishing third-party pages on a site to manipulate search rankings, a technique known as parasite SEO. The European Union raised concerns that Google's spam policy was demoting the websites and content of news media and other publishers in search results, particularly when those websites featured content from commercial partners.\n\nGoogle stated that as of August 30, any manual actions taken to demote sites would not apply to users in the 27 European Economic Area (EEA) nations, including Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein. However, the policy would remain unchanged outside the EEA. The company expressed its support for the repeal of this policy, which it deemed unfairly penalized publishers and other business users of Google Search.\n\nThe European Commission, acting as the EU competition enforcer, welcomed the policy change, emphasizing that news publications would no longer be unfairly demoted solely for hosting third-party content on Google Search. This move comes as part of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which seeks to curb the power of Big Tech. The Commission will now monitor the implementation of the new policy to ensure it complies with the DMA, with potential fines of up to 10% of a company's global annual turnover for violations.",
  "summary": "The US tech giant said that from Aug 30, any manual actions taken to demote sites would not apply to users in the 27 EU nations.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 7,
    "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": "Business Recorder",
        "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",
        "published": "2026-08-28T05:50:31.000Z"
      },
      {
        "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-3926581",
        "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."
}