Google Escapes Antitrust Scrutiny Again as AI Overviews Expansion Raises Concerns
Google has once again dodged being broken up over its ad tech monopoly. This is the second time the company has avoided being split due to its dominance in the online advertising space. The latest development comes as Google expands its AI Overviews by default, making them more like AI Mode. However, this change has raised concerns among publishers about the lack of link and citation functionality in Gemini 3.8 Flash.
Google has confirmed that it does not penalize websites for having old outbound links with potentially shady content. The company also highlighted the importance of using the disavow link tool to manage link equity. Additionally, Google Search Console's AI performance reports and AI controls have been rolled out globally.
Other notable updates include Google Trends introducing category filtering, the company confirming its search spam team is actively fighting spam, and the rollout of Google Analytics' September data. Microsoft is also testing removing site names from search result snippets and forcing Copilot users to log in, but not for search answers within Bing Search.
Lastly, Google AdSense will soon use Begin-to-Render impression measurements, and the company is working on fixing a bug affecting Local Service Ads.