14 DAY TRIAL // Several days after news came out that the antitrust case between Google and the European Union has finally come to a close, the Internet giant is sharing the full text of the agreement.
On its European blog, Google’s General Counsel Kent Walker wrote a post laying out the big changes that are to come and adding a link to the full 90-page document.
Dated on January 31, 2014, the extremely long file contains a bunch of examples on how search results will look in Europe from now on, following the agreement between the company and the Commission.
Four large areas will receive changes, as Walker summarizes in the blog post.
Firstly, the AdSense terms will suffer some changes in order to make it even easier for publishers to place ads on their sites from multiple providers, this leveling out the playing field to some extent.
Secondly, the AdWords API terms are also getting some modifications, as the company will make it easier for software providers to build tools for advertisers to manage campaigns across platforms.
There are also going to be some new rules regarding how website content is used in vertical search services.
Lastly, there will be changes to Google’s user interface that will give services from rival companies significant prominence on the search results page. The last one was one of the big issues other tech companies had with Google, especially since its search engine is the most used tool of its kind in the world.
Objections towards the previous proposals regarding this issue have derailed the talks between Google and the European Union on several occasions in the past, which is why the Commission chose not to consult to any other companies before accepting this particular settlement offer from Google.
Google’s opponents are, of course, still not happy with the deal, but there’s little they can do about it at this point.