The Google EU fine fight has a new billion-dollar entry: the European Commission has imposed a $1 billion penalty on Google after finding that the company abused its position in search and app distribution under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act.
The Commission said its investigation found Google used its dominance in the search and app store markets to push people toward its own apps and services. Regulators ordered the company to stop favoring its own offerings in search rankings, including services for shopping, accommodation, transport and flights.
The order also targets Google Play. According to the Commission, Google must let app developers tell users about offers and complete transactions outside the Play Store, where Google takes a commission on sales. That is the kind of plumbing change that sounds dull until you are the developer paying the toll or the user who never sees a cheaper sign-up path.
Why did the EU fine Google?
The Commission says Google broke the Digital Markets Act by giving its own services preferential treatment and restricting how developers can reach customers. The DMA is the EU’s rulebook for large online platforms designated as gatekeepers, requiring them to avoid using control over core services to tilt markets in their own favor.
Teresa Ribera, an executive vice president at the European Commission, said products should win because they are better rather than because they belong to the company operating the search engine. She also said European consumers should be able to hear from app developers about better offers even when the app store owner does not receive a cut.
Google rejected the Commission’s view and told WIRED it will consider an appeal. Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said the decision was not fair competition and argued it would degrade products at the urging of a small set of complainants, with European businesses and consumers bearing the cost.
Industry groups made a similar argument. Daniel Friedlaender, senior vice president at CCIA Europe, told WIRED that reducing the quality of services available to Europeans was not a positive result. That is the standard platform defense: regulation forces product changes, and product changes are then framed as harm to users. The Commission’s case is that the existing product design was already harming competition.
What changes has Google proposed?
Google has proposed changes to how it runs the Play Store and how it displays its own products in search rankings, according to the Commission. Regulators described those proposals as progress toward compliance, which is Brussels-speak for better than nothing, still not enough to end the matter.
The penalty adds to a long EU antitrust record against Google. Over the past decade, European regulators have brought several multibillion-dollar fines against the company. In early July, a European court upheld a $4.1 billion fine from 2018 involving agreements that required phone makers to install Google Search and Chrome on devices.
Kathryn McMahon, an associate professor of law at the University of Warwick, told WIRED that ranking decisions carry high stakes because they can strongly affect businesses. She said EU competition law places a special responsibility on dominant firms such as Google not to distort competition.
The decision also lands during a tense political moment. US president Donald Trump recently said he would impose steep new tariffs on European countries that restrict American technology companies, according to the BBC. The White House did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
McMahon described the latest penalty as a strong response given transatlantic complaints and the way Trump can use fines as leverage. In her view, the Commission is signaling that it is willing to be tough.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
