{"id":112762,"date":"2026-08-29T10:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T10:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T10:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T10:41:12","slug":"google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/google-changes-spam-policy-in-eu-to-avert-antitrust-fine-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Google changes spam policy in EU to avert antitrust fine | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

EU says Google’s spam policy demoted news and publisher sites with content from commercial partners<\/p>\n

The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London, Britain January 18, 2019. REUTERS <\/p>\n

\n

Alphabet’s Google\u00a0on Friday said it had changed its\u00a0spam policy,<\/a> \u00a0in Europe to \u200baddress EU concerns that could have resulted in an \u200cantitrust fine.<\/p>\n

The US tech giant found itself in EU regulators’ crosshairs after publishers complained about its site reputation abuse policy.<\/p>\n

It targets the practice of publishing \u200bthird-party pages on a site in an attempt to abuse \u200bsearch rankings by taking advantage of the host site’s \u2060ranking signals, commonly referred to as parasite SEO.<\/p>\n

The EU said \u200bthat its monitoring showed that Google’s spam policy demoted news media \u200band other publishers’ websites and content in Google search results, when those websites include content from commercial partners.<\/p>\n

Google said that from August 30 any manual actions \u200btaken to demote sites would not apply to users in \u200bthe 27 EU nations, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein (the European Economic Area).<\/p>\n

The policy would \u200cnot \u2060change outside the European Economic Area, it added.<\/p>\n

“We welcome the repeal of this policy, which unfairly penalised publishers and other business users of Google Search,” EU Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said.<\/p>\n

Read More: <\/strong>Major tech companies call for defensive surge to defeat AI-driven hacks<\/a><\/p>\n

Concerns about the \u200bpolicy had prompted \u200bthe European Commission, \u2060which acts as the EU competition enforcer, to open an investigation under the Digital Markets Act, \u200bwhich aims to rein in the power of Big \u200bTech.<\/p>\n

“Thanks \u2060to the DMA, Google Search will no longer demote press publications solely for hosting third-party content,” Regnier said.<\/p>\n

“The Commission will now monitor the \u2060application \u200bof the new policy to ensure it \u200bis compliant with the DMA.”<\/p>\n

DMA breaches can cost companies fines of up to 10% \u200bof their global annual turnover.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EU says Google’s spam policy demoted news and publisher sites with content from commercial partners The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London, Britain January 18, 2019. REUTERS Alphabet’s Google\u00a0on Friday said it had changed its\u00a0spam policy, \u00a0in Europe to \u200baddress EU concerns that could have resulted in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/google-building-r1783687717-0\/google-building-r1783687717-0-640x480.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t