The EU has hit Google with a whopping fine for abusing its search dominance and promoting Google's other businesses in favour of competitors.
Clearly, as marketers, this is rather disappointing because we blithely believed that SEO was a level playing field where the best content rises to the top. As it turns out, you get to the top if Google, as an organisation, decides it likes you.
What happened to "Don't be Evil"?
The commission found Google “systematically” gave prominent placement to its own in-house service, demoted rival comparison shopping services in search results, so “even the most highly ranked rival service appears on average only on page four of Google’s search results”.
https://www.ft.com/content/9554a8bc-5b12-11e7-b553-e2df1b0c3220
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