Google Will 'Degrade' Search In Europe to Avoid EU Fines (engadget.com)
- Reference: 0185539908
- News link: https://search.slashdot.org/story/26/09/08/2214256/google-will-degrade-search-in-europe-to-avoid-eu-fines
- Source link: https://www.engadget.com/2253229/google-will-degrade-search-in-europe-to-avoid-eu-fines/
> That sanction was the latest salvo between the EU government and a US tech company for infringing on its Digital Markets Act. The debate centers on the [2]DMA requirement that major tech brands "must not treat their own services more favorably in ranking than third-party services."
>
> [...] According to [3]Reuters , Google's revised search results "will highlight one specialized search engine at the top of the page, followed by two others with fewer details. A carousel of hotels, airlines and restaurants, for example, will sit below them with key features such as real-time prices stripped out." Those specialized engines include sites like Expedia or Hotels.com, also known as vertical search services, so European users may soon see those aggregators and comparison sites prioritized more highly than individual businesses' websites in their results.
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> Reuters noted that "the rankings will be determined by Google's algorithm," meaning the tech company still holds a lot of control over how results are displayed. The EC had given Google 60 days to comply with its rules, but the company has not specified an exact timeline for when European users will start seeing the changes.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2253229/google-will-degrade-search-in-europe-to-avoid-eu-fines/
[2] https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/commission-fines-google-eur890-million-breaches-digital-markets-act-2026-07-23_en
[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/google-warns-lower-quality-it-revamps-europe-search-results-avoid-eu-fines-2026-09-08/
Already? (Score:3)
Google search is already heavily degraded by all of that crap.
Re: (Score:3)
Yep - AIO is the biggest degrade in the history of search - just filthy stupid. I've been changing to Claude and Chatgpt almost exclusively for search. *uck Google.
Re: (Score:2)
Except that I trust even the AIs to provide a correct answer even less. Everyone is tainted today. Heck - even Yandex starts to look trustworthy.
Figures (Score:2)
They degraded it in their homeland almost a decade ago.
While this might degrade the user experience (Score:3)
this isn't intended to protect that. It's intended to protect their competitors. Which it may or may not do well, but Google whining about user experience is an open admission that they know full well they are the problem.
Re: (Score:3)
And the Enshittification playbook is, that once the competitors are gone, they start degrading it for the users. Currently they may spare the user a click, but if the competition is eliminated they start charging sites for the click and the sites add the cost to the cost the user pays (direct or indirect). Competition is important to ensure fair play.
That was the guy from before. (Score:2)
The guy who did my job before me took some weird blood oath, apparently. That's no reason to prevent me from dishonoring my ancestors. I mean, I never even met that guy.
Re: (Score:1)
They did at some point, years ago, quietly remove that clause from their company charter. There was no press release about it when it happened, but it was reported here on Slashdot at the time. IIRC, it was right around the same time they got caught illegally photographing private property and mapping wifi network SSIDs for their "Street View" data.
Do people still use Google for search? (Score:2)
Honest question.
Re: (Score:2)
From time to time, prefering duckduckgo as default.
When Google completely rolls out their goto= URLs the cases when I still use Google will get reduced to almost zero.
Re: (Score:2)
> From time to time, prefering duckduckgo as default.
I've about given up on DDG. I hate using Google, but too often I can find useful results there when I find no results at all on DDG.
I've also tried going back to Startpage, but it's little better. Internet search just basically sucks now.
Re: (Score:2)
Yandex.
Re: (Score:2)
> It's all fucking garbage. Lycos or Altavista would be better today.
I have fond, fond memories of AltaVista from back in the day. It actually honoured my search terms and operators, and - shock of shocks! - gave me NO hits when there were no relevant results. Unlike today, when multiple excludes are totally ignored and the results just shove low-grade shit in my face.
I'm planning on playing around more with ChatGPT to see how well it does with simple Arduino and OpenSCAD coding. I think I'll try using it for search as well - it probably can't be worse than the search engine
Re: (Score:2)
Sadly this is true. No search engine that respects my search terms. They all fuzzymix in some related words, then takes top two most popular and does search on that. Fresh garbage, here you have, still steamy, eat it while you can.
'Degrade'... (Score:3)
Pity the poor Europeans, crying out without the bot slop occupying the top half of the results. I wonder what Google is going to do to ensure that the 'degraded' results aren't universally preferred to the alternative?
Re: (Score:2)
> I degraded Google's Mom.
In Soviet Russia, Google's Mom degrade YOU!!!
Google caves to petty dictators (Score:2)
The Gulf of America and Lake America .
Coming soon: the Trump Straights and the State of New America .
[1]When will he change the calendar to suit his whims? [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saparmurat_Niyazov#Cult_of_personality
It's... it's... it's... (Score:3)
It's almost as if Google is evil and needs to be totally regulated by governments so they comply with what we should be able to expect of an omnipresent company.