Google said it will make further tweaks to its European search results after hotels, airlines and small retailers complained that direct booking clicks fell almost a third due to recent search engine changes.
Under European Union rules that came in last year, the Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) company is not meant to favour its products and services over others.
Since the EU's Digital Markets Act was brought into law, Google said it had made 20 modifications to Google Search to comply, including redesigning certain features and completely removing others.
This has benefited large online travel aggregators and price comparison sites, legal director Oliver Bethell said in a blog post today.
However, it has also been found to make it harder for airlines, hotel operators, and small retailers to reach customers, with these groups reporting a 30% decline in direct booking clicks resulting from natural, non-sponsored search results.
"We have therefore proposed more changes to our European search results to try to accommodate these requests, while still meeting the goals set by the DMA," Bethell said.
Meanwhile, Bethell's legal colleagues are also focused on two trials the company is involved in with the US Department of Justice, with closing courtroom arguments made in the ad tech trial yesterday.
US district court judge Leonie Brinkema is expected to make a ruling by the end of 2024.
If Google's advertising technology (ad tech) system is judged to be a monopoly, a second trial to work out potential remedies will follow, a process that is already underway in a separate district court case over Google's search arm.