The European Commission is investigating Google for disadvantaging news sites, suspecting a violation of the Digital Markets Act. The company risks significant fines.

The European Commission has opened a new investigation against Google, suspecting the company of unfairly disadvantaging news results, thus violating the Digital Markets Act. The investigation focuses on the site's reputation abuse policy, in which Google would downgrade results for publisher sites that include content from commercial partners.

Teresa Ribera, head of the EU competition department, stated that the investigation aims to protect the revenues of news publishers during a difficult time for the industry. If Google does not address the identified issues, the company risks fines of up to 10% of its global annual sales. Google has denied the allegations, claiming that its anti-spam policy is essential to prevent the promotion of paid materials from third parties. This investigation comes after Google was fined nearly 3 billion euros in September for favoring its own advertising services, bringing the total EU fines to 9.5 billion euros. The Digital Markets Act, which came into force in 2023, limits the power of large tech platforms and has led to a broader examination of Google's practices.