Google faces EU antitrust probe over spam policy

The European Commission has launched an antitrust investigation into Google’s spam policy following complaints from publishers who allege it has reduced their revenues.

The Commission said it is examining whether Google’s site reputation abuse policy is causing news media and publisher websites to be demoted in search results when they host content from commercial partners.

EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said the probe will assess if Google’s actions prevent publishers from earning revenue, whether publishers are treated in a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory manner, and if the company complies with the Digital Markets Act.

Google said the investigation is “misguided,” arguing its anti-spam policy helps level the playing field, risks to search quality, and was upheld by a German court.

The case follows complaints from German media firm ActMeraki and several European publisher associations.

If Google is found in violation, it could face fines of up to 10% of its global annual revenue.

🔗 Source: Reuters

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Publishers lack hard proof tying the policy to revenue declines

Publishers report losses, yet no independent data isolates changes from the March 2024 site reputation abuse policy (targeting third‑party content leveraging a host site’s authority) versus broad core updates (ranking shifts unrelated to one rule) 1.
Google began manual enforcement (case-by-case penalties applied by humans) in November 2024 against Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and CNN 2. The European Commission’s probe cites no measured traffic or revenue impact from those actions 2.
Overlapping timing with broad ranking changes makes it impossible to separate losses from legitimate enforcement versus overly aggressive demotions, which complicates the Digital Markets Act (DMA) review by the European Union (EU) 1 3.

SEO compliance vendors see an opening as publishers seek to avoid penalties

Publishers want tools and services that audit partner content 3. They need fixes like correct affiliate link markup (clearly labeling paid links) and noindexing policy-violating pages (adding tags that tell search engines not to index) to cut reputation abuse risk 3.
Google’s FAQ says correctly marked affiliate links are not site reputation abuse, which boosts demand for services that help publishers apply compliant markup 3.
Policy ambiguity over what counts as exploiting ranking signals versus legitimate monetization creates demand for consultants who know Google’s enforcement patterns and can design compliant partnerships 2.
With fines up to 10% of global annual revenue on the line for Google, the company is unlikely to ease enforcement, which makes prevention tools more valuable than remediation for affected publishers 4.