Google has been hit with a record €890m (£759m) fine by the European Union for rigging its search results and app store to favour its own services over rivals – the first major enforcement of the bloc’s flagship digital competition law.
The penalty, announced on Wednesday, is the most significant test yet of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a sweeping regulation designed to curb the dominance of the world’s biggest tech companies. The European Commission said Google violated the law in two separate ways, handing down a €460m penalty for manipulating flight and hotel booking results to push its own offerings ahead of competitors, and a further €430m fine for restricting app developers from directing users to cheaper deals outside Google Play.
“Google fined €890m by EU in first-ever enforcement of Digital Markets Act for favouring own apps.”
“The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine,” said EU competition chief Teresa Ribera.
The tech giant pushed back hard. Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, accused Brussels of forcing the company 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 added: “This isn’t fair competition.”
EU officials rejected that characterisation. Henna Virkkunen, the bloc’s technology chief, argued the decision was about creating a level playing field: “After this decision, we want to make sure that there is more competition and also other companies are able to innovate.”
The ruling comes after years of friction between Google and European regulators. The company has previously been hit with billions in fines over separate antitrust cases, including a €4.1bn penalty for using its Android operating system to block rivals. But the DMA marks a new, more aggressive phase of enforcement, giving regulators faster tools to intervene.
Zach Meyers, director of research at the Centre on Regulation in Europe, noted that the Commission had hesitated to finalise the decision, likely “by a desire not to upset EU-US relations”. But with US president Donald Trump repeatedly threatening or imposing new tariffs, Meyers said EU officials concluded there was little to gain from holding back. “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,” he told the BBC.
The fine is the opening salvo in what is likely to be a protracted battle between Silicon Valley and Brussels over the future of digital markets. Google has already signalled it may challenge the penalty, setting the stage for a legal clash that could shape how the internet works for millions of Europeans.