Google says its revamped Europe search results have poor quality
What's the story
Google has announced changes to its search results in Europe, a move aimed at meeting the demands of EU antitrust regulators. The tech giant said these changes will degrade user experience and increase costs for European businesses. This is the biggest quality reduction in service since the inception of Google Search 29 years ago, an official told Reuters.
Impact on businesses
Search results will now be skewed in favor of VSS
While the EU proposed these changes as a way to level the playing field for companies looking to advertise, Google believes they actually favor price comparison sites (VSS).
These include Expedia and Booking.com in sectors like hotels, airlines and restaurants.
They get more prominence in search results over other companies that are listed with just their website link, phone number, and address.
Antitrust violation
€460M fine for breaching DMA
In July, Google was slapped with a €460 million ($534 million) fine for favoring its own services in shopping, hotels, transport, and sports results.
The move was seen as a breach of the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to curb the power of Big Tech.
The European Commission had given Google 60 days to comply with the DMA or face periodic penalties of up to 5% of its total worldwide turnover.
Search revamp
Changes to search results
The revamped search results will highlight one specialized search engine at the top, followed by two others with less detail.
A carousel of hotels, airlines, and restaurants will sit below them but key features such as real-time prices would be stripped out.
Google's algorithm will determine the rankings.
"To comply with DMA requirements, we're making significant changes to Search in Europe," Nick Fox, Google's senior vice president for knowledge & information, said in a statement to Reuters.
Business impact
Google tested changes with millions of users in Europe
The changes are likely to hit European businesses, Google said.
The company had previously seen a 30% drop in free, direct booking traffic to these businesses after past DMA-related changes.
The latest alterations are expected to have a similar effect.
Google has tested the changes with millions of users in Europe and found high levels of dissatisfaction as they had to retype queries for desired results.