Google on Wednesday said that it will alter how it delivers search results to give comparison websites more prominence in an effort to comply with new EU rules.

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) designates certain large online platforms act as "gatekeepers" in digital markets, and compels them to meet certain requirements at the risk of up to 10 per cent of the company’s total worldwide annual turnover, or up to 20 per cent in the event of repeated infringements.

The relevant part of the DMA, with which Alphabet-owned Google must comply by 7 March, probits gatekeeper companies from treating their services and products more favourably in ranking than similar services or products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper's platform.

Gatekeeper platforms must allow their business users to access the data that they generate in their use of the gatekeeper’s platform, provide companies advertising on their platform with the tools and information necessary for advertisers and publishers to carry out their own independent verification of their advertisements hosted by the gatekeeper, and allow their business users to promote their offer and conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeeper’s platform.

In a blog post written by Oliver Bethell, director of legal at Google, the company said: "We will introduce dedicated units that include a group of links to comparison sites from across the web, and query shortcuts at the top of the search page to help people refine their search, including by focusing results just on comparison sites.

“For categories like hotels, we will also start testing a dedicated space for comparison sites and direct suppliers to show more detailed individual results including images, star ratings and more. These changes will result in the removal of some features from the search page, such as the Google Flights unit.”

Google has historically been the subject of significant criticism from rival comparison sites, leading to the company receiving a €2.42 billion EU antitrust fine in 2017.

The company also announced a series of other changes to comply with the DMA, including letting Android phone owners to more easily change their default search engine or browser, while Google will also present European users with an additional consent banner to ask permission to share data targeted ads.

The post concedes that "while we support many of the DMA's ambitions around consumer choice and interoperability, the new rules involve difficult trade-offs, and we're concerned that some of these rules will reduce the choices available to people and businesses in Europe.”

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