DMA: EU Commission examines possible media discrimination by Google

Is Alphabet's Google search engine service unlawfully restricting competition by discriminating against content for supposedly technical reasons? The Brussels supervisory authority for the Digital Markets Act (DMA) considers exactly this initial suspicion to be present. Among other things, its own investigations Hinweise darauf ergeben have provided indications of this, according to Commission officials familiar with the case.

"We are concerned that Google's actions deny news publishers fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory treatment in search results," says Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera. "Our targeted action serves to protect the funding of publishers, their economic freedom, and ultimately media pluralism and democracy," says EU Commission Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, responsible for Digital.

Media Sites as Ranking Manipulators?

Specifically, the allegations concern Alphabet's search engine penalizing certain website behaviors – in the EU Commission's view, when commercial content from third parties is embedded on them. Without this being an example cited by the EU Commission, a price comparison embedded on heise.de, for instance, could be a reason for a lower ranking.

Google argues that this is primarily intended to prevent manipulation of search rankings. The disputes between the US digital group and European media companies have been ongoing for years and have already led to legislative changes to specifically protect the media industry on several occasions. Not affected by the current suspicion is Google News: This service has too little reach to be considered a gatekeeper service under the Digital Markets Act, thus wielding significant market power and controlling traffic.

If the initial suspicion, now established, is further substantiated, the Commission could impose a fine of up to 20 percent of its worldwide annual turnover under the Digital Markets Act and demand changes to Google's practices. However, a penalty of such magnitude is unlikely in the current case. The current investigation is intended to be concluded by the authority within a year at the latest. As early as March 2024, the EU Commission had initiated investigations against Google for non-compliance with DMA regulations; the company sees the law as a failure and is advocating for reform.

(wpl)