Google had to bring its apologies to the newspapers Guardian and Bild, after the search giant cited “nonsense” figures for their traffic statistics in a response to the EC antitrust charges against Google. The indicators showing the two papers getting “up to 85% of their traffic directly” and “less than 10% from Google” were later retracted.

In the wake of the decision by the EU to relaunch the investigation against Google for anticompetitive practices, Google argued against the allegations, saying that the wealth of innovation in various sectors, including travel search, shopping comparisons, and social media, shows that Google does not dominate any of those sectors. In addition, Google also defended its role in news – for example, it had to close its news search product in Spain after being demanded to pay licensing fees to newspapers it aggregated. Another example is when major German publishers accused the search giant of blackmail after removing images and text snippets following a lawsuit.

So, when defending its role in news, Google claimed that users often go directly to their favorite sites, such as Bild and The Guardian, which get up to 85% of their traffic directly, while only less than 10% comes from the search engine. This is what called “nonsense” figures by the newspapers, because in reality the results are somewhat equal. Google eventually agreed by removing its figures and apologized.

By the way, Google also apologized to Yelp, another company it had cited as evidence of healthy competition, after Yelp argued that it got 40% of its searches, not traffic, direct from its mobile app, emphasizing that the company doesn’t disclose the traffic numbers.