Google has started a drastic test that remove European Union-based news articles from its search results, Google News and Discover for one percent of users in nine EU countries which includes, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain
The test is carried out to examine how it will impact traffic and the overall search experience, following requests from EU regulators and publishers for data on the effect of news content in search.
According to Google, it’s a “limited time” test because EU regulators and publishers “have asked for additional data about the effect of news content in Search.”
The company further shared that it will continue to show results from websites and news publishers from outside of the EU, and also resume showing results from EU news publishers once the test will be done.
After the test, EU news publishers will know exactly how much traffic they would be missing out on without Google.
This move may serve as a warning to EU news publishers and also raises questions about Google's willingness to comply with EU regulations, such as the European Copyright Directive.
