As Google continues to navigate its relationship with publishers, regulators, and news readers, the company is starting a pretty drastic test: it will remove news articles from European Union-based publishers from Search.
While the “test” is supposed to determine how it will impact traffic and the overall search experience, it won’t show up for everyone. Google will only remove EU news articles from search results, Google News, and Discover for one percent of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain.
Google says it’s running the “time-limited” test because EU regulators and publishers “have asked for additional data about the effect of news content in Search.” The company says it will…