Overview
- Brussels launched a formal investigation into whether Google’s “Site Reputation Abuse Policy” unfairly downranks news and publisher pages that host third‑party commercial content.
- The European Commission said the case will be completed within 12 months and stressed that opening the probe does not establish a violation.
- Possible penalties under the Digital Markets Act include fines up to 10% of global annual revenue, rising to 20% for repeat offenses, and potential behavioral or structural remedies.
- Google called the inquiry misguided, arguing the policy targets ranking manipulation; search lead Pandu Nayak said spammers exploit reputable sites to lure users to low‑quality content.
- In Berlin, the Idealo damages trial opened with the court signaling any award could be far below the €3.3 billion sought, a claim rooted in the Google Shopping self‑preferencing case upheld by the EU court in 2024.