EU Fines Google $1 Billion for Favoring Its Own Services Under New Digital Markets Law

The European Commission has fined Google 890 million euros, roughly $1 billion, for giving its own products an edge over rivals in search results and for restricting how app developers can steer customers away from the Google Play Store. It's the first fine Google has taken under the EU's Digital Markets Act, the regulation designed to rein in how the biggest tech platforms operate across Europe.

According to the Commission, Google's search engine consistently pushes its own services, things like Google Shopping and Google Hotels, into more prominent positions than comparable offerings from competitors. The regulator said those third-party services simply don't get the same visibility, even when they're directly comparable to what Google is promoting for itself.

The second violation cuts into how Google runs its app store. Under the DMA, developers who distribute apps through Google Play are supposed to be free to tell users about other, potentially cheaper ways to buy their product, and to send them to those alternatives even when that means leaving the Google Play ecosystem entirely and heading to an outside website or a rival app store. The Commission found Google wasn't allowing that. In its words, Google "prevents app developers from freely communicating and promoting offers and concluding contracts with users in distribution channels of their choice, including third-party app stores."

That distinction matters because it's exactly the kind of behavior the DMA was written to stop: a gatekeeper using its control over a marketplace to keep both users and developers locked inside its own ecosystem, even when cheaper or better options exist just outside it.

As part of the ruling, the Commission ordered Google to start treating third-party services in search results "in a fair and non-discriminatory manner." It also directed Google to let Play Store developers promote deals and finalize transactions with customers outside the Play Store itself, not just within it.

Google was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

Why the DMA has teeth

The Digital Markets Act took effect as Brussels' answer to years of slower-moving antitrust cases against Silicon Valley, which often dragged on for years before resulting in fines that companies could treat as a cost of doing business. The DMA instead names specific "gatekeepers," the handful of platforms big enough to control access to markets, and lays out upfront rules they have to follow, with regulators empowered to move faster and enforce more directly.

Google, along with a short list of other major platforms, was designated a gatekeeper under the law, putting its core products, including Search and Google Play, under this tighter scrutiny. This case is a real-world test of what that scrutiny actually looks like once it produces an enforcement action rather than just a designation.

What comes next

This is a developing story, and the Commission's order changes how Google is required to operate in the EU going forward, not just what it owes financially. Google will need to adjust how it ranks competing services in search and how much freedom it gives app developers to route around the Play Store's payment and distribution system. Whether Google appeals the fine, and how quickly it implements the required changes, will shape how much this ruling actually reshapes the competitive landscape for shopping, travel booking, and app distribution in Europe.