A PYMNTS Company

Germany Widens Google News Showcase Antitrust Investigation

By  |  June 6, 2021

On Friday, June 4, Germany’s competition regulator announced that it was expanding an antitrust investigation into Google and its parent company Alphabet to include Google News Showcase, a new service the US tech giant provides to media publishers.

    Get the Full Story

    Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required.

    yesSubscribe to our daily newsletter, PYMNTS Today.

    By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.

    The Federal Cartel Office will examine whether the Google service, which was launched in Germany last autumn and allows publishers to place journalistic content more prominently online, is compatible with German competition law.

    We’d love to be your preferred source for news.

    Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks!

    Add as Preferred Source

    It is the latest in a string of probes that the watchdog has opened this year under a new law allowing it to further scrutinize US tech giants such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook.

    While cooperation with Google could be “an attractive option” for publishers and other news providers, it should not “result in discrimination between individual publishers,” said the regulator’s president Andreas Mundt in a statement.

    “Google’s strong position in providing access to end-customers must not lead to a situation where competing services offered by publishers or other news providers are squeezed out of the market.”

    Launched in response to a complaint by German-based company Corint Media, the probe will notably assess whether Google has given itself an unfair advantage over rival services by integrating News Showcase into its general search function.

    Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world.