The European Commission said on Friday it is granting Alphabet’s Google additional time to address competition concerns under the Digital Markets Act after the company’s earlier proposal was deemed insufficient by regulators.
Commission Finds Google’s Offer “Not Strong Enough”
Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told a daily news conference in Brussels that Google’s previous remedies proposal fell short of what regulators expected. “The reality for now is that solution is simply not strong enough. So we’re giving Google a bit more time to keep engaging with the Commission to offer a solution that really addresses the concerns in the interest of European businesses and European citizens,” Regnier said.
The extension comes days after Google filed a remedies offer with the Commission proposing changes to how it ranks news content in search results, according to Bloomberg. The company also offered to amend its anti-spam policies that have drawn complaints from publishers across Europe.
The Site Reputation Abuse Case
The investigation, opened by the Commission in November 2025, centers on Google’s “site reputation abuse policy,” introduced in March 2024. Under that policy, Google demotes pages on otherwise reputable websites when those pages host third-party content the company judges to be low quality or unrelated to the host site’s main purpose — a practice commonly known as “parasite SEO.”
Publishers have argued that the policy unfairly punishes legitimate business arrangements and restricts their ability to monetize their websites through partnerships with third-party content providers. The Commission is examining whether the policy breaches Articles 6(5) and 6(12) of the DMA, which require Google to apply fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory conditions to business users of its search engine.
High Stakes for Alphabet
A breach of the DMA could expose Google to fines of up to 10 percent of Alphabet’s global annual turnover, or 20 percent for repeat offenses. The company has already accumulated approximately €9.5 billion in EU competition penalties since the 2017 Google Shopping decision.
The Commission has charged Google with breaching the DMA and is in the process of finalizing its decision. Industry groups representing European publishers have grown increasingly frustrated with the pace of enforcement, with 18 organizations signing an open letter in April urging the Commission to act after what they described as two years of non-compliance.
