BRUSSELS — The European Commission imposed fines totalling €890 million on Google on Thursday after finding that the United States technology group violated the European Union’s Digital Markets Act in the operation of its search engine and Google Play application marketplace.
The enforcement action consists of two separate decisions. The Commission fined Google €460 million for giving its own specialised services preferential treatment within Google Search and imposed a further €430 million penalty for restricting the ability of app developers to direct consumers towards alternative purchasing channels outside Google Play.
The combined sanction is the largest financial penalty announced under the Digital Markets Act since its principal obligations became applicable to designated technology gatekeepers. It places Google alongside Apple and Meta among the major platforms formally penalised under the legislation and demonstrates the Commission’s willingness to apply the regulation to product design as well as contractual and commercial practices.
Under the search decision, EU regulators concluded that Google presented its own services, including shopping, hotel, transport and sports results, more prominently than comparable services supplied by third parties. The Commission said Google’s products could appear at the top of results pages or receive enhanced visual displays, filters and interactive features that were not made available on equivalent terms to competitors.
The DMA prohibits designated gatekeepers from treating their own services more favourably in rankings than similar services offered by outside businesses. It also requires ranking conditions to be transparent, fair and non-discriminatory. The rule is intended to prevent a company controlling a major gateway to online markets from using that position to channel users towards its adjacent commercial products.
Google Search occupies a particularly important role because it can influence which businesses consumers encounter when comparing goods, booking accommodation, arranging travel or seeking other services. Rival comparison platforms, booking services and specialist search providers have long argued that prominent Google-generated modules can draw attention and traffic away from independent websites before users reach conventional search links.
The Commission’s ruling does not require Google to remove every specialised result or prohibit it from displaying useful information directly. It instead orders the company to treat third-party services appearing in search results fairly and without discrimination when compared with Google’s own services. The practical question will be whether competing services obtain comparable visibility, functionality and access to presentation formats.
The Commission said Google had already proposed and begun testing changes to the way it displayed free shopping, hotel and flight services following discussions with regulators. Brussels described those changes as substantial progress towards compliance but stopped short of declaring that they fully satisfied the DMA.
Google has also proposed adjustments affecting shopping advertisements and content-related services such as sports results. Those measures remain under regulatory assessment. The Commission said it would continue discussions with the company while evaluating whether the revised designs eliminate the preferential treatment identified in the decision.
The search ruling also has implications for Google’s growing use of artificial intelligence. The company has increasingly incorporated AI-generated summaries and conversational functions into its search products, potentially changing how information, links and commercial services are presented to users. The Commission said dialogue would continue over how the principles of the decision should apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode.
That aspect of the case could become increasingly important as traditional lists of links give way to generated answers, recommendations and task-completion tools. If an AI search interface recommends a hotel, product, transport option or booking service without providing comparable access for competitors, regulators may examine whether the resulting presentation reproduces the same self-preferencing concerns in a new technical format.
The second decision concerns Google Play and the ability of developers to steer users towards offers outside the app marketplace. The DMA states that developers distributing applications through a gatekeeper’s app store must be able to inform customers, without charge, about alternative offers and direct them to external websites or other distribution channels where purchases may be cheaper.
The Commission found that Google’s rules prevented developers from freely communicating and promoting such offers or concluding contracts with users through channels of their choice. Those channels can include developers’ own websites and third-party application stores, where different payment arrangements or lower prices may be available.
Google is permitted to charge a fee reflecting its role in facilitating the initial acquisition of a customer through Google Play. Regulators nevertheless concluded that the level of Google’s steering-related charges and the length of time for which they applied went beyond what could be considered compliant with the DMA.
The distinction is central to the Commission’s approach. The legislation does not eliminate the possibility that a platform may be compensated for providing distribution, discovery, security and customer-acquisition services. It seeks, however, to prevent the platform from extending its commission structure or contractual control so broadly that developers cannot establish an economically viable direct relationship with their customers.
For developers, particularly companies selling subscriptions, games, media services or other digital products, external purchasing can reduce transaction costs and provide greater control over customer service, billing and promotions. For consumers, steering can make it easier to compare prices and identify discounts that are not offered within the app-store purchasing system.
Google must now allow developers using Google Play to communicate and promote external offers and conclude contracts with users both inside and outside the marketplace. The obligation covers technical barriers as well as contractual restrictions, meaning formal policy changes alone may not be sufficient if the user interface continues to make external purchasing unnecessarily difficult.
The Commission acknowledged that Google had already introduced revised steering terms and described the changes as good progress. Regulators will nonetheless assess the new arrangements against the cease-and-desist requirements contained in the decision, including the level, duration and structure of any charges connected to customers first acquired through Google Play.
The company has 60 days to comply with both decisions. Failure to implement adequate measures could expose Google to periodic penalty payments of as much as 5% of its average daily worldwide turnover. Such payments are designed to compel compliance and can accumulate for each day that a company fails to meet the requirements established by an enforcement decision.
The DMA also allows the Commission to impose fines of up to 10% of a gatekeeper’s total worldwide annual turnover for an infringement and as much as 20% for repeated violations. The Commission said the amounts imposed on Google reflected the gravity and duration of the conduct, without providing a full public calculation in its initial announcement.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported approximately $403 billion in revenue for 2025, meaning the €890 million sanction represents only a small portion of the group’s annual income. The broader commercial significance of the decision is therefore likely to depend less on the immediate financial cost than on the product and business-model changes required by regulators.
European Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera said products should succeed because they were better rather than because they were owned by the company operating the search engine. She also said European consumers should be able to learn from app developers where the most favourable offers were available, even when the app-store operator did not receive a share of the transaction.
Google strongly criticised the decisions. Kent Walker, the company’s president of global affairs, described the outcome as product degradation driven by a limited group of complainants and said it would negatively affect European consumers and businesses.
The company argued that compliance demands could force it to remove or diminish real-time search functions such as immediate hotel, flight and restaurant pricing and availability. Google has previously said that redesigning search results to increase the prominence of intermediary comparison services can make it harder for users to reach airlines, hotels and other direct providers.
On Google Play, the company maintains that rules permitting wider use of external payment and distribution channels can weaken protections against fraudulent transactions, deceptive links and malicious software. It has argued that the app marketplace’s fees support security reviews, developer tools, payment infrastructure and the broader Android ecosystem.
The Commission’s position is that security measures can be maintained without preventing developers from communicating legitimate alternatives or imposing charges that undermine the right to steer consumers elsewhere. The next phase of enforcement will test whether Google can design safeguards that are proportionate and transparent while preserving meaningful commercial freedom for developers.
Google is expected to challenge the decisions through the EU courts. An appeal would not necessarily suspend the company’s obligation to comply unless interim relief were granted. Judicial proceedings could examine the Commission’s interpretation of fair ranking, the appropriate treatment of specialised search features and the extent to which app-store operators may charge for customers acquired through their platforms.
The case follows a lengthy regulatory process. Google was designated as a gatekeeper under the DMA in September 2023. The Commission opened non-compliance investigations into its search self-preferencing measures and steering rules on March 25, 2024, before issuing preliminary findings against the company on March 19, 2025.
Unlike conventional competition cases, which generally require regulators to establish market dominance and demonstrate anti-competitive effects through extensive economic analysis, the DMA establishes advance obligations for companies designated as gatekeepers. The framework is intended to allow earlier intervention in digital markets where network effects, data advantages and control over distribution can make competition difficult to restore after it has been weakened.
The legislation applies to core platform services including search engines, app stores, social networks, operating systems, online advertising services and messaging platforms. A central objective is to ensure that businesses relying on those services can compete on reasonable terms and that consumers are not locked into choices determined by the platform controlling access.
Thursday’s action therefore represents more than a dispute over individual search boxes or app-store links. It is a test of whether the Commission can translate broad legal principles such as fairness, non-discrimination and contestability into detailed technical requirements for products that are continuously redesigned.
Monitoring will be especially complex in search, where ranking systems, advertising formats, specialised modules and AI-generated responses can change frequently. Regulators will need to assess outcomes across different categories and queries rather than relying solely on Google’s published policies or a limited number of interface examples.
For Google Play, scrutiny is likely to focus on whether users can reach external offers through straightforward links, whether developers can communicate prices without restrictive wording and whether continuing fees remain proportionate to services actually supplied by Google. The Commission may also examine warning screens or security prompts to determine whether they inform consumers or discourage lawful alternatives.
The decision was announced amid continuing disagreement between Brussels and Washington over EU regulation of American technology groups. United States officials have criticised European digital rules and penalties as disproportionately affecting US companies, while the Commission maintains that its laws apply according to market position and conduct rather than corporate nationality.
EU officials have insisted that enforcement decisions are based on European law and consumer interests. The Google case may nevertheless add pressure to wider transatlantic discussions covering tariffs, digital services, data rules and the treatment of technology companies operating across both markets.
The immediate focus now shifts from the size of the fine to the implementation period. Google must convert its existing proposals and tests into measures that the Commission considers effective, durable and applicable across the relevant services. Brussels has said it will maintain a constructive dialogue, but the formal non-compliance findings give regulators a stronger basis for imposing additional penalties if progress stalls.
For rival search providers, comparison platforms and app developers, the value of the ruling will depend on measurable changes in traffic, visibility, pricing freedom and customer access. For European consumers, the effects may appear through redesigned search pages, additional links to competing providers and more opportunities to purchase digital products outside Google Play.
The Commission’s final assessment of those changes will determine whether the €890 million sanction becomes a turning point in the practical enforcement of the DMA or the opening stage of another prolonged regulatory and judicial dispute between the EU and one of the world’s largest digital companies.
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