Google Will Adjust Search Results To Comply With EU Rules

Google will customize the search results online to provide more postage on the comparison site (photo: dock. unsplash)

JAKARTA Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, announced that it will adjust online search results to provide more postage on the comparison site, according to a statement in their blog on Wednesday, January 17.

This move is part of Google's efforts to comply with new EU (EU) technology regulations that could impact several companies' revenues.

According to the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which Google must follow until March 7, the company is required to treat competing services and products in the same way they apply to their own products and services when ranking search results.

Google is also required to provide access to business users to access the generated data when using the Google platform.

"We will introduce a special unit that includes a group of links to a comparison site from the rest of the web, and a query shortcut at the top of the search page to help people refine their search, including by focusing results solely on comparison sites," said their Google blogpost.

"For hotel-like categories, we will also start testing special spaces for comparison sites and live suppliers to show more detailed individual outcomes including images, stellar assessments, and others. These changes will result in the removal of some features from search pages, such as Google Flights units," he added.

Competitor's comparison sites have become the most vocal critic of Google's search practices, with complaints in the previous decade resulting in a fine of the EU cartel of 2.42 billion euros (Rp41.1 trillion).

Some changes in the next few weeks will allow Android phone owners to easily switch to alternative search engines or default browsers and Google service and products users to move their data to third-party apps or services.

European users will see additional approval banners to ask if some Google services can continue to share data for targeted ads.

Google warns that some businesses and users may not be satisfied with their proposal, which could still change before March 7. While supporting a lot of DMA's ambitions around consumer and interoperability options, Google expressed concern that some of these rules could reduce the options available to society and businesses in Europe.