Brussels Hits Google With €890M Fine, Orders Changes to Search and App Store

The European Commission has fined Google €890m (£760m) for breaching the EU's Digital Markets Act, splitting the penalty between two separate violations: how the company handles search results and how it treats app developers trying to route customers around its Play Store fees.

The bigger chunk, €460m, covers search. Regulators found Google gave preferential placement to its own products, things like Shopping listings and hotel comparison tools, ahead of competing services in search results. The other €430m addresses Google Play, where the commission says Google stopped app developers from pointing users toward cheaper subscription options on outside websites or rival app stores.

Alongside the fine, the commission ordered Google to treat competing services fairly and without discrimination when they show up in search, and to let developers advertise off-platform deals without restriction. Notably, the commission acknowledged that Google has already begun testing changes to how it surfaces its own services in search results, calling that work "substantial progress towards compliance." That's a meaningful detail: it suggests Brussels sees this less as a closed case and more as the opening move in an ongoing enforcement push.

Why this keeps happening to Google

This is Google's second run-in with the DMA's teeth, and it fits a pattern the EU has been building since the law took effect. Apple was fined €500m last year over App Store restrictions, and Meta was hit with a €200m penalty over its "consent or pay" model for ad-free Facebook and Instagram. The DMA was written specifically to target a handful of dominant tech platforms, and Google, Apple and Meta have now all tested how far the commission is willing to go.

A senior EU official framed the search decision as something ordinary users will actually notice. "Research results will be different in Europe. They will have to adapt their search engine going forward," the official said, according to the Guardian's reporting.

Not everyone thinks the fine goes far enough. Max von Thun, director of the Open Markets Institute Europe, called the penalty the "bare minimum" for a company that pulled in just over $400bn in revenue last year. He argued the commission now needs to move fast to force Google to actually stop the practices in question, saying Europe's startups "cannot wait much longer."

Google pushes back hard

Google isn't taking this quietly. Kent Walker, the company's president of global affairs, dismissed the ruling as "product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants," arguing it will ultimately hurt European businesses and consumers rather than help them. His broader complaint is that the DMA forces Google to rip out features people actually like using, such as instant pricing and live availability for flights, hotels and restaurants, and to weaken safety checks built into Google Play.

Google has the right to appeal the decision and can request interim measures, including asking the commission to pause enforcement while that plays out. Given the company's response, an appeal looks likely.

The Trump wrinkle

There's an added layer of tension here that has nothing to do with antitrust law directly. The fine landed just hours before a batch of temporary global tariffs from the Trump administration, covering roughly 60 countries, was set to expire. That timing raises an obvious question about how Washington might respond, especially given the current administration's history of treating EU tech enforcement as a targeting of American companies.

An EU official said they had no read on how Trump might react, but pushed back on any suggestion that the fine's timing was connected to the tariff situation. The official's position was blunt: the EU has the "sovereign right" to regulate US tech companies operating within its jurisdiction, tariffs or no tariffs.

Whether that argument holds up politically is a separate question from whether it holds up legally. But it underscores what's really at stake beyond the €890m figure itself. The commission is signaling it intends to keep using the DMA aggressively against the biggest platforms, regardless of how that lands in Washington. Google's next move, likely an appeal, will determine whether this fine actually reshapes how search and app payments work in Europe, or becomes another number tied up in years of litigation.