The European Commission has fined Google €890 million ($969 million) for violating the Digital Markets Act, marking the first major penalty under Europe’s landmark tech competition law. The fine covers two separate breaches: favoring Google’s own travel and hotel booking services in search results, and restricting app developers from offering cheaper deals outside Google Play.
EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said companies should succeed because of the quality of their products, not because of 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. “After this decision, we want to make sure that there is more competition and also other companies are able to innovate.”
The Digital Markets Act, which took full effect in 2024, imposes strict obligations on the largest tech platforms designated as gatekeepers. It requires them to allow fair access to their platforms and prohibits self-preferencing behaviors that disadvantage smaller competitors. Google is the first major company to face a financial penalty under the regime, which carries maximum fines of up to 10 percent of global annual revenue for repeat violations.
The Commission imposed a €460 million penalty after finding Google gave its own services preferential treatment in search results for flights and hotel bookings. A further €430 million fine was levied over Google Play Store rules that the EU said prevented developers from informing users about cheaper options available outside Google’s marketplace.
Google strongly criticized the decision. Kent Walker, the company’s president of global affairs, argued that compliance would degrade services that millions of Europeans rely on daily. “To comply, we are 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,” he said.
The fine comes against a backdrop of escalating tensions between Brussels and Washington over technology regulation. The decision was delayed several times, which analysts attributed to EU concerns about straining transatlantic relations. However, the Commission ultimately pressed ahead, reflecting what experts describe as a growing view in Brussels that the benefits of regulatory credibility outweigh the diplomatic risks.
Zach Meyers, director of research at the Centre on Regulation in Europe, said the delay in finalizing the decision was likely driven by a desire not to upset EU-US relations. But he noted that the Commission came to see its efforts as futile and went ahead with the fine. “It reflects a growing view among EU officials that the US president’s unpredictability and unwillingness to comply with his own deals means that the EU has little to gain by treading softly — and potentially a lot to lose in terms of regulatory credibility,” Meyers said.
Google has 60 days to comply with the EU’s requirements or challenge the decision by taking the Commission to the European Court of Justice. The company did not immediately indicate whether it would pursue legal action, but its public statements suggest it considers the ruling both commercially damaging and legally questionable.
The fine adds to Google’s long history of regulatory battles in Europe. The company has previously been hit with billions of euros in penalties over separate competition cases, including a €4.34 billion fine in 2018 over Android antitrust violations and a €2.42 billion fine in 2017 over shopping search results. Together, these cases have made Google the most heavily fined tech company in EU history.
The DMA was designed to prevent exactly the kind of behavior the Commission found in this case. Unlike earlier competition cases that took years to resolve, the DMA allows regulators to act more swiftly against gatekeepers that breach their obligations. The Google decision is widely seen as a test case for whether the law can effectively rein in Big Tech’s market power.
European consumer groups welcomed the fine, calling it a necessary step toward fairer digital markets. However, some industry observers warned that heavy-handed regulation risks fragmenting the internet along regional lines and could lead to poorer services for European users. The debate over how to balance competition, consumer protection, and innovation is likely to intensify as regulators examine similar practices at other major platforms.