By Lisa O’Carroll
Publication Date: 2025-11-13 11:09:00
The EU has launched an investigation into Google Search over concerns the US tech company has been “demoting” commercial content from news media sites.
The bloc’s executive arm announced the move after monitoring found certain content created with advertisers and sponsors was being given such a low priority by Google that it was effectively no longer visible in search results.
European Commission officials said this potentially unfair “loss of visibility and of revenue” to media owners may be a result of an anti-spam policy Google operates.
Under the rules of the Digital Market Act (DMA), which governs competition in the tech sectors, Google must apply “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions of access to publishers websites on Google search”.
Commission officials said the investigation was not into the overall indexing of newspapers or their reporting on Google Search, just into commercial content provided by a third parties.
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