Google Changes Spam Policy to Avoid EU Antitrust Fines

Google announced Friday that it will change its spam policy within the European Economic Area to avoid potential antitrust fines from the European Union. The adjustment specifically addresses the company's site reputation abuse policy, which targets parasite SEO, the practice of hosting third-party pages to manipulate search rankings.

European Union regulators found that the policy demoted news media and publisher websites that included content from commercial partners. In response, Google will stop taking manual actions to demote such sites for users in the 27 EU nations, as well as Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein, starting August 30.

This policy shift follows an investigation by the European Commission under the Digital Markets Act. Under this legislation, the commission can impose fines of up to 10 percent of a company's global annual turnover for breaches.