The Japan Times - EU probes Google over news site rankings despite Trump threats

The European Commission said Google is demoting media publishers' websites and content in search results when they include content from commercial partners, such as sponsored editorial pieces.

"We are concerned that Google's policies do not allow news publishers to be treated in a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory manner in its search results," EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said.

"We will investigate to ensure that news publishers are not losing out on important revenues at a difficult time for the industry," Ribera said.

The probe under the EU's online competition rules known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) comes after Trump warned this year he would slap tariffs on countries he accuses of targeting US tech companies.

The sweeping EU law seeks to rein in the world's biggest tech firms by forcing them to open up to competition in the 27-country bloc.

Google slammed the "misguided" probe as "without merit", defending the search platform's policies as necessary to protect users from spam.

"This surprising new investigation risks rewarding bad actors and degrading the quality of search results," Google Search chief scientist Pandu Nayak said in a blog post.

- Avoiding spammy search results -

The EU will probe whether Google's anti-spam policy is fair and transparent for publishers, though it is not questioning the measure as a whole.

"This policy appears to directly impact a common and legitimate way for publishers to monetise their websites and content," the commission said.

The EU's fear is that Google's bid to protect users from spam could impact publishers' "freedom to conduct legitimate business" at a difficult time for news media, with advertising revenue down and many users preferring video content.

While Brussels believes publishers have lost revenue due to the policy, it did not have figures to detail how much, and would not comment on which media outlets.

Google said it seeks to protect users from the risk of spammers taking advantage of the good ranking of publishing outlets, in order to trick them into clicking on low-quality content.

The commission said it will seek to conclude the probe within 12 months.

- Google in EU crosshairs -

Google already faces heavy scrutiny from EU regulators.

The EU slapped Google with a massive 2.95-billion-euro fine in September, which drew an angry rebuke from Trump and more tariff threats.

Brussels also accused Google of treating its own services more favourably compared to rivals as part of a DMA probe launched in March 2024.

And at the same time it said the Google Play app store prevented developers from steering customers outside the store to access cheaper deals.

If DMA breaches are confirmed, the law gives the EU the power to impose fines of up to 10 percent of a company's total global turnover.

This can rise to up to 20 percent for repeat offenders.

K.Inoue--JT