Tech

Brussels fined Google €890 million on Thursday, the first penalty the company has taken under the Digital Markets Act and the sixth EU competition decision against it in under twenty years.

The European Commission split the amount across two separate findings. A €460 million fine covers self-preferencing in Google Search, where the Commission found the company gave its own shopping, hotel, transport and sports results better placement than competing services. The remaining €430 million covers Google Play, where developers were blocked from telling users about cheaper ways to pay outside the store.

Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s competition chief, framed the decision around ranking rather than size. “The best products should succeed because they’re better,” she said, arguing that European consumers have a right to hear from developers about better offers even when the store owner takes no cut.

Google has 60 days to change both practices. It has already said it may go to court.

Google says the fix breaks the product

Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said compliance will force the company to remove live search features in Europe, including instant hotel pricing and direct availability for flights and restaurants. He called the outcome “product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants” rather than fair competition, and argued that steering users off Google Play carries security risks.

That argument has not landed. Ribera and EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen both used their briefings to restate that the rules apply regardless of where a company is headquartered.

The bigger story is what happens next

The more consequential detail sits below the fine. The Commission said Google has already proposed and begun testing changes to how it displays its own free services in search, and separately to how it presents shopping ads and sports content. Regulators described this as substantial progress and pointed to a constructive dialogue with the company.

In practice, that means daily non-compliance penalties, which can run to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover, are probably off the table. Apple and Meta, fined in April 2025 in the first DMA actions, did not get the same language.

The Commission also said Google may need to apply Thursday’s reasoning to AI Overviews and AI Mode, its generative summaries in search. Talks on that are continuing. For anyone tracking where this regime is heading, that line matters more than the €890 million. It is the first signal that the DMA’s ranking obligations will follow Google into AI-generated answers, where the distinction between a result and a recommendation gets much harder to police.

Politics in the background

The timing is awkward. The Trump administration has repeatedly cast the EU digital rulebook as a trade barrier aimed at American firms and has raised the prospect of retaliatory tariffs. US lawmakers have added their own pressure. Ribera’s answer, when asked, was that the Commission’s obligation is to enforce its own law.

Total EU antitrust penalties against Google now stand at roughly €10.38 billion, including the €2.95 billion adtech fine issued in September 2025 and the €4.34 billion Android decision from 2018.

Alphabet shares traded about 4% lower before the US open, though most of that reflected investor reaction to the AI spending plans laid out in Wednesday’s earnings, not the fine itself.

For businesses in the Gulf, the direct effect is limited. DMA obligations bite on what European users see, so app developers and travel firms operating here will not see Play Store terms change outside the EU. The precedent is what travels.