Google News warns sites not to hide country of origin

San Francisco, Dec 17 (IANS) In an attempt to take on fake news head on, Google News has updated its guidelines to prohibit sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises.

"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," states the company guidelines.

Google also allows publishers to file a spam report if they believe that another publisher has violated Google News inclusion guidelines.

"While we may not take manual action in response to every report, spam reports are prioritised based on user impact, and in some cases may lead to complete removal of a spammy site from Google News results," Google said.

The move to keep dishonest sites from appearing in Google News comes in the wake of mounting pressure on the Internet giant to do more to stop the spread of fake news after allegations of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 US presidential election surfaced, Engadget reported late Saturday.