Google faces fine in Europe over its spam policy, tech company says probe ‘misguided’ and ‘risks harming millions’

The European Commission has launched an antitrust investigation into Google’s spam policy following complaints from publishers who say the policy has reduced their revenues, a report has said, adding that this probe puts Alphabet’s Google at risk of another substantial fine from regulators in the European Regulators (EU). This comes over a year after Google implemented stricter measures against companies manipulating its search algorithm to boost rankings for other sites, the report added.

The European Commission said its monitoring shows Google is demoting news media and other publishers’ websites and content in Google search results when those sites include content from commercial partners.