Germany drops antitrust probe into Google News Showcase after its makes 'adjustments'

On Wednesday, Germany dropped its antitrust probe into Google's News Showcase service after the tech giant made some "important adjustments" to ease competition.

President of Germany's Federal Cartel Office, Andreas Mundt said, "Google has responded to our concerns and implemented important adjustments to the benefit of publishers."

This comes after the US-based tech giant agreed to exclude "Google News Showcase" from its general search results.

Mundt said, "It will continue to be irrelevant for the ranking of the search results whether or not a publisher participates in Showcase."

Ralf Bremer of Google Showcase said the company is pleased that the case has been dropped and it can continue this important journalistic programme with its publishing partners.

Launched in 2020, Google Showcase allows users to present more journalistic content prominently on a designed platform.

However, an inquiry was launched last year by Germany's antitrust watchdog after a complaint was filed by Corint Media, a publishing group that manages the rights of radio and television stations.

The company said that it feared that newsgroups that had not signed Google's agreement would see their content relegated in search results.

In response to the probe, Google in January said that it would abandon its plan to integrate showcase in general result sections.

(with inputs from agencies)

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