Google had been in troubled waters with the European Commission due to multiple DMA rules-related compliance issues for several years. In the latest development, Google has changed its EU spam policy to avoid any major antitrust penalties. As Google changes its spam policy, local publishers are closely watching the impact. The search engine giant announced the change on Friday after facing intense pressure over its site abuse policy.
The EU regulators investigated Google’s search ranking drops from legitimate publishers
For those unaware, the European Commission stepped in when investigations revealed a problem with how Google handled search results. Originally, the tech titan designed its spam policy to stop the ranking of sites in search results that use heavy parasite SEO. Online publishers utilize this tactic to place content on established sites and exploit those host sites’ strong ranking on Google.
However, Google’s automated tools and manual actions hurt legitimate news publications. Furthermore, the company’s tools actively reduced the search rankings of media publications whenever their websites displayed any sponsored content from a commercial partner. This issue led the EU regulators to launch an enquiry under the Digital Markets Act.
Google is stopping manual search demotions across various European economic areas
According to the Reuters report, Google is making changes to its spam policy to resolve the regulatory scrutiny and avoid major fines. Starting August 30, Google’s manual search demotions under the site reputation policy are not going to affect queries or content within the European Economic Area.Â
The report reveals the changes will apply to all users in the 27 member states of the EU, including Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein. Google mentioned that the new spam policy adjustment will apply exclusively to these European markets.
In all other international regions, the company’s standard enforcement rules will continue to apply. If Google hadn’t changed its spam policy in the EU, it could’ve faced penalties reaching up to 10 percent of its global turnover.
The post Google Changes EU Spam Policy to Dodge Massive Antitrust Fines appeared first on Android Headlines.
​Â
