The European Commission fined Google €890 million ($1 billion) on Thursday after finding the company had violated the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which ensures fair online competition.
Google was designated a gatekeeper for Google Search in September 2023, with non-compliance investigations opened in March 2024.
On Thursday, the Commission said the company favored its own services on Google Search and restricted how app developers could direct customers to cheaper purchase options on the Google Play app store.
“The Commission found that Google gives preferential treatment to its own services, including shopping, hotels, transport and sports results, over those of third parties in Google Search, thereby breaching its obligations under the DMA,” it noted.
“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.”
Google was fined €460 million for boosting its services in search results and €430 million for the app store steering practices. Under the DMA, gatekeepers must treat third-party services fairly in search rankings rather than favoring their own.
The company was also ordered to end these DMA violations within 60 days or risk penalty payments of up to 5% of its worldwide turnover. Google may appeal today’s decisions.
The Commission noted that Google has begun testing changes to how its own services are placed in search results and rolled out changes to its steering terms, which the EU’s main executive body described as substantial progress towards compliance.
“Google has fallen short of effective compliance with the Digital Markets Act, and today we have taken decisive yet balanced enforcement action sanctioning these breaches,” said Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition.
“The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine. And European consumers have a right to be told by app developers where to sign up to the best offers, even when the app store owner does not get a cut.”
In September, the European Commission also fined Google €2.95 billion ($3.5 billion) for favoring its adtech services over those of its competitors by abusing its dominance in the digital advertising technology market.
The same month, the French data protection authority slapped the company with another €325 million ($378 million) fine for displaying ads between Gmail users’ emails without their consent and violating cookie regulations.
More recently, in early July, Google also lost a final appeal against a €4.1 billion ($4.7 billion) antitrust fine over its use of Android to promote its search service and the Chrome web browser.
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