Yeah, they sent a letter to Google saying that searches are covered by the recent directive; after signing up to the annoying Lumen DB, you can read it:
From: <@ec.europa.eu>
Date: Fri, Mar 4, 2022, 6:57 PM
Subject: Ukraine
Dear Signatories,
I am sending you the below email on behalf of [redacted], in order to provide clarifications
related to the sanctions, following up on questions received.
Kind regards,
[redacted]
Disclaimer: please note that this is an informal position, which does not bind the
Commission. Please also note that it is for national judges and ultimately for the European
Court of Justice to rule on the interpretation of Union law.
Internet search services
In the Regulation the legislator intends to set out a very broad and comprehensive prohibition.
Internet search services are provided by “operators” for the purposes of the Regulation. The
Regulation prohibits both the broadcasting (which is a very broad concept in this Regulation) and
the fact that operators “enable, facilitate or otherwise contribute to broadcast”. The Regulation
refers in that regard to “including through transmission or distribution by any means such as
cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or
applications.” Furthermore, the anti-circumvention clause laid down in the Regulation is worded
in very broad terms. A broad construction of the prohibition laid down in the Regulation is also
consistent with its objective, which is in particular to tackle the fact that RT and Sputnik have to
date gravely distorted and manipulated facts and have repeatedly and consistently targeted
European political parties, especially during election periods, as well as civil society, asylum
seekers, Russian ethnic minorities, gender minorities, and the functioning of democratic
institutions in the Union and its Member States (recital 6); the Russian Federation has engaged in
continuous and concerted propaganda actions targeted at civil society in the Union and
neighbouring countries, gravely distorting and manipulating facts (recital 7).
Search engines such as Google are designed to index results containing any possible content;
they index websites throughout the world; the information is indexed by their ‘web crawlers’ or
robots, that is to say, computer programmes used to locate and sweep up the content of web
pages methodically and automatically (see by analogy judgment of the ECJ in Google Spain,
C‐131/12, para. 43). The activity of search engines plays a decisive role in the overall
dissemination of content in that it renders the latter accessible to any internet user making a
search on the basis of the content indication or related terms, including to internet users who
otherwise would not have found the web page on which that content is published (see by analogy
judgment of the ECJ in Google Spain, C‐131/12, para. 36). Consequently, if search engines such
as Google did not delist RT and Sputnik, they would facilitate the public’s access to the content
of RT and Sputnik, or contribute to such access.
It follows from the foregoing that by virtue of the Regulation, providers of Internet search
services must make sure that i) any link to the Internet sites of RT and Sputnik and ii) any
content of RT and Sputnik, including short textual descriptions, visual elements and links to the
corresponding websites do not appear in the search results delivered to users located in the EU.
I've omitted the section on social media, which is included in the same letter.
