Google to block websites hiding country of origin

Google is planning to curb fake news from showing up on its portal- Google News. The company has updated its guidelines to block websites that "misrepresent or conceal their country of origin" or otherwise are aimed at people in another country "under false premises." This will help the readers to distinguish between what's real and what's false.

The search engine giant says, "Sites included in Google News must not misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about their ownership or primary purpose, or engage in coordinated activity to mislead users. This includes, but isn't limited to, sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises. If your site publishes aggregated content, separate it from your original work, or restrict our access to aggregated articles via a robots.txt file."

The guidelines also made it clear that "advertising and other paid promotional material" on news pages "cannot exceed your content". Google News may also remove sites participating in "other misleading practices not listed in these guidelines," the company said.

Google says that failure to follow these guidelines may result in removal of articles or entire site from Google News. The search engine giant also allows publishers to file a spam report if they discover a fake news site or believe that some other publisher has violated Google News inclusion guidelines.