EU fines Google €890m for competition breaches over search and apps
Google has been fined €460m for the search-related breach and €430m for the app store violation. Photograph: Steve Marcus/Reuters
Google has been fined €460m for the search-related breach and €430m for the app store violation. Photograph: Steve Marcus/Reuters
EU fines Google €890m for competition breaches over search and apps
Firm told to treat third-party services that appear in its results in ‘fair and non-discriminatory manner’
Google has been fined a total of €890m (£760m) by the EU for breaches of online competition laws by its search and app store services.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said Google had broken the Digital Markets Act by giving priority to its own services, such as shopping and hotel deals, in search results over those of its rivals.
It also infringed the DMA by preventing app developers from steering consumers towards cheaper offers, including for subscriptions, on websites or alternative app stores.
Google has been fined €460m for the search-related breach and €430m for the app store violation. The commission has ordered the company to treat third-party services that appear in its search results in a “fair and non-discriminatory manner” and allow app developers to make offers outside Google’s app store.
It noted that Google had already started testing changes to how it displayed search results featuring its own services. It said those changes represent “substantial progress towards compliance”.
Consumers would be direct beneficiaries of the decision by the EU, a senior official said. “Research results will be in different in Europe. They will have to adapt their search engine going forward,” they said.
Max von Thun, director of the Open Markets Institute Europe thinktank, said the fines were the “bare minimum” for a company that made revenues of just over $400bn last year.
“Having finally established Google’s non-compliance, the commission must now move quickly to force Google to end its anti-competitive practices once and for all. Europe’s startups and innovators cannot wait much longer,” he said.
The decision to impose the fine risks the ire of Donald Trump, only hours before a series of temporary global tariffs against about 60 countries expires.
A senior official for the EU said they had no knowledge of how Trump was likely to react, insisting that the bloc had the “sovereign right” to regulate US tech companies in its own jurisdiction and that the timing of the fine was not connected to tariffs.
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Last year Apple and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta were fined under the DMA. Apple was told to pay €500m for anti-competitive practices at its app store and Meta was told to pay €200m in a ruling on its ad-free “consent or pay” proposal for facebook and Instagram.
Google can appeal against the decision and ask for interim measures, including a request to suspend the measure. The search company’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, described the fine as “product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants” that will have a negative impact on European businesses and consumers.
He argued that the DMA forces Google “to strip away real-time search features Europeans love – like instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights, and restaurants – and dismantle safety protections on Google Play”.
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