Google, EU Commission opens proceedings on media content in the search engine
In the event of an infringement, the community body may impose fines of up to 10% of the company's total global turnover
There is a thread that binds each new European investigation into Google. A sort of growing, almost palpable tension between Brussels and Mountain View. A friction that this time risks weighing even more heavily, because it moves within the rigid - and politically symbolic - perimeter of the Digital Markets Act, the European law that came into force in 2023 designed to limit the power of the world's largest technology platforms with a series of rules on what to do and what not to do.
The European Commission has just announced the opening of new proceedings against Big G, suspected of unfairly penalising certain search results linked to publishers. In particular, it is behaviour that could violate the DMA: the 'demotion' in rankings when a site hosts content from commercial partners. In the inscrutable language of European regulators, it means one very simple thing: if you publish sponsored material, you risk disappearing further down the rankings on Google. And that, for many publishers today, is the difference between surviving and floundering.
"We want to make sure that publishers do not lose revenue at the very worst time for the industry," said Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera, hinting that there is more at stake than just a technical procedure. The Commission claims that, under the neutral label of 'site reputation abuse policy', Google is actually intervening directly in one of the most widespread - and legitimate - forms of editorial monetisation. In more banal words: the engine that stops being an engine and puts its beak into editorial choices, before providing search results to the user.
Should the investigation result in a conviction, Alphabet (the giant that controls Google) would risk - as per DMA practice - penalties of up to 10% of global turnover. Which in this specific case would be several billion dollars.
For its part, Google is clearly of a different opinion. In a blog post, Pandu Nayak, chief researcher at Google Search, stated that the EU's investigation into what Google calls its anti-spam initiatives is 'completely wrong and risks harming millions of European users'. The company claims that its policy is necessary to prevent third-party paid content on publishers' websites from appearing in search results in higher positions than they deserve.
