Alphabet’s Google has amended its spam policy in Europe to address concerns raised by the European Union and avoid a potential antitrust fine.
The technology company came under scrutiny after publishers complained about its site reputation abuse policy, which targets the practice of placing third-party content on a website to manipulate search rankings, commonly known as parasite SEO.
The European Commission said its monitoring found that the policy had resulted in news organisations and other publishers seeing their websites and content downgraded in Google search results when they hosted material from commercial partners.
Under the changes, manual actions that lower the search rankings of affected websites will no longer apply to users in the 27 EU member states, as well as Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, from August 30.
Google said the policy would remain unchanged outside the European Economic Area.
The European Commission had opened an investigation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the EU legislation designed to regulate the market power of major technology companies.
Google’s policy change comes as the EU continues to scrutinise the practices of major technology platforms under the DMA.
Companies found to have breached the legislation can face fines of up to 10% of their worldwide annual turnover.
