"The European Commission has launched a fresh probe into U.S. tech giant Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google over its news ranking practice in its search engine business. The European Union watchdog on Thursday disclosed that its monitoring activities hinted that Google's "site reputation abuse policy" might be punishing news sites and other publishers by ranking their content very low when the content contains materials from such organizations' commercial partners."
"While Google says the policy is aimed at websites and content that host low-quality third-party content to manipulate search rankings by riding on the authority of their sites, the Commission believes that the policy might be hurting publishers' ability to monetize their websites and content. "We will investigate to ensure that news publishers are not losing out on important revenues at a difficult time for the industry, and to ensure Google complies with the Digital Markets Act," noted Teresa Ribera, the Commission's executive vice president for clean, just and competitive transition."
The European Commission initiated a new investigation into Google's treatment of news search rankings, focusing on a "site reputation abuse policy" that may demote publisher content when it contains material from commercial partners. The Commission is concerned that the policy could reduce publishers' ability to monetize content and harm industry revenues. The probe can last up to 12 months and will recommend remedial steps if needed. Potential penalties include fines up to 10% of global revenue, adding to about $11 billion in prior EU fines, and could affect diplomatic relations amid broader EU regulation of Big Tech under the Digital Markets Act.
Read at TipRanks Financial
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]