"The investigation, opened by the Commission in November 2025, focuses on Google's 'site reputation abuse policy', introduced in March 2024. Under that policy, Google demotes pages on otherwise reputable websites when those pages host third-party content the company judges to be of low quality or unrelated to the host site's main purpose."
"The Commission's concern is that the policy has been used to push down news publishers' pages that include affiliate-marketing or third-party-advertising content, drying up traffic and revenue."
"The European Publishers Council filed the original antitrust complaint that triggered the investigation. The council argued that the policy disproportionately affects news publishers, who routinely monetise editorial pages through advertising and affiliate partnerships."
The European Commission is investigating Google for potentially demoting publishers' pages with third-party advertising content. Google has proposed remedies to change its ranking system to avoid penalties. The investigation, initiated in November 2025, centers on Google's policy that may disadvantage news publishers by lowering their visibility in search results. The European Publishers Council filed the original complaint, claiming the policy harms revenue for news publishers who rely on advertising. The remedies offered by Google have not been fully disclosed yet.
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