The proposals filed in Brussels aim to resolve the European Commission’s investigation into whether Google has been depleting publishers’ pages with third-party advertising content. Failure to settle could expose Alphabet to penalties of up to 10 percent of global revenue.
Google has applied for a remedy to the European Commission proposing changes to the way it rates news content in searches, in an attempt to resolve a competition investigation before it issues a Digital Markets Act fine. Bloomberg reported the filing on Wednesdaywith the company seeking to avoid adding an effective amount of €9.5bn ($11.2bn) to EU competitions in penalties collected since 2017.
investigation, was opened by the Commission in November 2025focuses on Google’s “site reputation abuse policy,” which was introduced in March 2024. Under that policy, Google demotes pages from reputable websites if those pages host third-party content that the company deems to be of low quality or unrelated to the host site’s primary purpose.
Concerns of the Commission that the policy has been used to demote news publishers’ pages that include affiliate marketing or third-party advertising content, to stop traffic and revenue.
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The European Publishers Council filed the first antitrust complaint that led to the investigation. Tthe council argued that the policy unfairly affects news publishers, who make money from editorial pages through advertising and affiliate partnerships.
However, the question is whether Google’s ranking algorithm gives news publishers fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory access to its search space, the level required of the gatekeepers appointed under Article 6(11) of the DMA.
The solutions provided by Google have not been fully published. The suggests indicates that the company is willing to modify the way the site’s abuse policy is applied to news sites, and to make the impact of the policy on the publisher’s pages more visible. The Commission has not indicated whether the proposals are sufficient to resolve the case.
If the Commission rejects the offer and proceeds with an infringement decision, Google could face a fine of up to 10 percent of Alphabet’s annual global profits.. Combined EU antitrust fines against Google have already reached €9.71bn since the Google Shopping decision in 2017, and the company’s standing value is the largest of any single technology operator under any single competition.
The news search investigation is one of several open EU files that Google is currently investigating. Eearlier today, we wrote in Google eminent scientist Sergei Vassilvitskii’s warning to the Commission that its proposed remedies to DMA search data sharing could expose European users to re-targeting within two hours.
Review of the same Cybersecurity Act of Brussels strengthened the regulatory environment for non-EU technology providers broadly. Google’s entry into the news search issue is a direct attempt by the company to fix one of these open files without a contested decision.
On the publishers’ side, the offer comes at a time of structural pressure. Search Engine Land analyzes the wider controversy noted that AI-generated feedback experiences in Google searches have distinctly reduced click traffic to publishers’ sites, with several major news organizations publicly attributing reduced revenue to the change.
The site’s abuse of reputation policy is a separate issue, but the cumulative effect of both has been one of the main complaints that publishers have raised in Brussels.
The Commission’s next step is procedurally clear. It will evaluate Google’s proposals regarding the concerns raised in the investigation, examine the market’s proposed remedies with publishers and other stakeholders, and decide whether to accept them, request modification, or reject and proceed with legal infringement.
The investigation has no set deadline, and Bloomberg reports that there is no specific timetable for the Commission’s response. TNW tracked the EU’s broader sovereignty and competition agenda this spring; the news search case is the current tangible manifestation of the DMA’s use of teeth against a designated gatekeeper.
What is resolved, in Wednesday’s filing, is that Google has determined that the financial and reputational risks of the Commission’s negative decision outweigh the costs of revising the policy in question. Publishers who have filed a complaint will, in the coming weeks, receive the Commission’s opinion on whether Google’s offer is sufficient.
