The European Commission has issued a fine of €890 million to Google over failure to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) by allegedly favouring its own services over those of competitors.
The combined fine was imposed over two distinct breaches of the DMA, with €460 million for Google prioritising its own transport, shopping, hotels, and sport services on Google Search over third-party services and €430 million for preventing app developers from promoting offers inside and outside the Google Play ecosystem.
Under the DMA, “gatekeeper” tech firms cannot rank their own services higher than those of competitors and app developers have a right to inform their customers of cheaper offers, including those accessible by redirecting users to external websites or app stores.
The European Commission said that Google had failed to comply with this and alleged it had pushed its own services to the top of search results and promoted them with “enhanced visuals and filters” not afforded to third-party offerings.
The European Commission said it has had “a constructive dialogue” with Google, which has begun testing changes to comply with the competitive provisions of the DMA as well as how to apply the same principles to its AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Google has 60 days to comply with the European Commission’s decisions, or it could face periodic penalty payments worth up to five per cent of its total worldwide turnover.
“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 at the European Commission.
“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. This is the promise of the DMA, protecting fairness, choice and innovation in digital markets for the benefit of all European citizens.”
NTN approached Google for a statement on the fine.
Under the DMA, the EU has made repeated demands that Google do more to allow third-parties to compete with the tech giant on its own platforms.
The EU’s total fines against Google since 2016 have now reached almost €12 billion, including €2.4 billion in 2024 for alleged anti-competitive shopping comparison services and €2.95 billion in 2025 for alleged anti-competitive use of adtech.
At the start of July, the European Court of Justice upheld a €4.1 billion fine against Google, over allegations it blocked third-party Android forks, paid manufacturers to pre-install Google search on their devices, and required developers to pre-install Google’s browser to access the Play store.
