Google has revised its search spam policies to create a separate set of rules for websites in the European Economic Area, a move designed to head off further antitrust penalties from the European Commission. The update, dated August 28, 2026, allows EEA-based sites that might otherwise face manual actions for violating Google’s site reputation policies to maintain their independent rankings in search results.
The backstory: a billion-dollar nudge
This policy shift came after the European Commission opened a formal investigation on November 13, 2025, into whether Google’s enforcement of its site reputation abuse policy unfairly disadvantaged news publishers and other entities that incorporate third-party commercial content.
The Commission’s core question was straightforward: did Google’s spam enforcement violate the Digital Markets Act’s requirements for fair and non-discriminatory ranking conditions? The DMA, which designated Google as a “gatekeeper” platform, imposes strict obligations on how dominant tech companies treat competitors and business users in their ecosystems.
On July 23, 2026, the European Commission hit Google with an €890 million fine, the first penalty levied against the company under the DMA. The violation was related to self-preferencing, a practice where Google allegedly promoted its own services over competitors in search results. Under the DMA’s enforcement framework, non-compliance can trigger daily fines that accumulate until the company gets in line.
