EU investigates Google over 'demoting' commercial content from news media

The EU said it was compelled to take steps to protect traditional media, which was now competing in the marketplace online. File picture: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire

The EU has launched an investigation into Google Search over concerns the US tech company has been “demoting” commercial content from news media sites.

The bloc’s executive arm announced the move after monitoring found certain content created with advertisers and sponsors was being given such a low priority by Google it was effectively no longer visible in search results.

European Commission officials said this potentially unfair “loss of visibility and of revenue” to media owners could be a result of an anti-spam policy Google operates.

Under the rules of the Digital Market Act (DMA), which governs competition in the tech sectors, Google must apply “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions of access to publishers websites on Google search”.

Commission officials said the investigation was not into the overall indexing of newspapers or their reporting on Google Search, just into commercial content provided by third parties.

Media partnerships with businesses selling goods or services ranging from holidays to trainers are “normal commercial practice in the offline world” and they should also exist in a fair online marketplace such as Google, officials said.

For example a newspaper may have teamed up with Nike to offer discounts, but there was evidence that under a Google search, that sub-domain of the newspaper would be “demoted to a point that users will not be able to find it anymore”. That in turn impacts the newspaper.

“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,” said Teresa Ribera, the executive vice-president for clean, just and competitive transition policies at the European Commission.

Officials will ask publishers to submit evidence of any impacts to its traffic and revenues as a result of suspected breaches of fair practices in the coming days, the commission said.

The EU said it was compelled to take steps to protect traditional media, which was now competing in the marketplace online, given the recent assertion by the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, in her state of the union address that the media at large was at risk with the arrival of AI and widespread threats to media funding.

The Guardian