The European Commission has fined Google €890 million for favouring its own apps and services over those of rivals, marking the first major enforcement action against the company under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act and the third against a tech giant under the landmark regulation.
The decision matters because it signals that Brussels is willing to press ahead with enforcement even amid threats of retaliation from Washington. The total fine comprises two separate breaches of the DMA. The Commission imposed a €460 million penalty after finding that Google favoured its own services for helping people book flights and hotels over competitors in search results, and it handed down a further €430 million fine over Play Store rules that prevented people from being shown cheaper offers available outside Google’s own marketplace.
Google pushes back
Google criticised the decision. The firm argued that the EU’s requirements could damage services used by millions of European customers. Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said that to comply the company is having to strip away real-time Search features Europeans love, like instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights, and restaurants, and dismantle safety protections on Google Play. “This isn’t fair competition,” Walker said. EU officials rejected that argument, saying the measures are necessary to prevent dominant platforms from disadvantaging rivals.
Political pressure from Washington
Google can appeal the decision. If it does, it may get backing from the Trump administration. Ahead of the Commission’s decision, 25 Republican lawmakers urged Donald Trump in a letter to retaliate against the anticipated fine by launching trade investigations, Reuters reported. Such a move could threaten the European Union with tariffs or restrict the EU from accessing US tech, if any resulting probes confirm lawmakers’ fears that the EU plans to use the DMA as a tool of economic extraction and regulatory coercion against American firms.
The letter may embolden Trump, who has been threatening to impose more aggressive trade restrictions against the EU since last spring, when Apple and Meta together were first to get hit with more than $700 million in DMA fines. Lawmakers do not even think that Apple and Meta should be labeled as gatekeepers under the DMA since popular Chinese firms like Temu and AliExpress are not bound by the same rules, the letter said.
EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said companies should succeed because of the quality of their products rather than their market position. “The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine,” she said. EU tech boss Henna Virkkunen echoed those thoughts, saying the Commission wants to make sure there is more competition and that other companies are able to innovate.
Zach Meyers, director of research at the Centre on Regulation in Europe, told the BBC that a delay in finalising the decision against Google was likely driven by a desire not to upset EU-US relations. Trump has frequently threatened or imposed tariffs. The BBC reported that the Commission came to see its efforts as futile and proceeded with the fine. Meyers said the decision reflects a growing view among EU officials that the US president’s unpredictability and unwillingness to comply with his own deals means the EU has little to gain by treading softly and potentially a lot to lose in terms of regulatory credibility.
Google now has 60 days to comply with the regulations or challenge them by taking the Commission to court. To comply, Google must treat third-party services in its search results in a fair and non-discriminatory manner compared with its own services in categories like shopping, hotels, and flights, and must allow app developers, both technically and contractually, to freely sign up users and promote offers outside of Google Play.