The EU is preparing to launch a fresh investigation into Google's practices concerning the ranking of news publishers. This probe will be conducted under the Digital Markets Act. The investigation will assess whether Google is unfairly favouring its own services or partners in news rankings, potentially disadvantaging other publishers. The EU's focus is on ensuring fair competition and preventing dominant players from stifling smaller news organisations. This scrutiny could lead to significant changes in how Google presents news content to European users and how it interacts with news providers. Publishers are worried about Google AI Overviews, trained on journalistic content, filling up search results. A group of independent publishers has lodged an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, alleging that Google's AI Overviews are harming their businesses by using publisher content without adequate permission or compensation.
The EU's action highlights the ongoing global concern over the power of tech giants and their influence on the news industry. Regulators are increasingly focused on ensuring that these platforms do not abuse their market positions to the detriment of smaller players and the overall health of the information ecosystem. Google has been fined in the past for abuses of a dominant position. The Commission's investigation found that Google is dominant in the market for publisher ad servers with its service “DFP”.
