Google slapped with $1 billion fine for violating EU's antitrust legislation

The European Commission announced today it will fine a total of Google €890 million—or about $1 billion—for two violations of the EU's Digital Markets Act. The Search giant has 60 days to either address the violations or risk further penalty payments of "up to 5% of its total worldwide turnover" in the future.

The Commission explained it is fining Google for "self-preferencing its own services on Google Search, and for putting in place restrictions on businesses to direct consumers to alternative, often cheaper, purchase channels on Google Play (steering)." These two violations have resulted in a fine of €460 million and a fine of €430 million respectively.

Google has already begun work to redress these DMA violations by beginning to test "changes to how it presents its own services on Google Search for free services such as shopping, hotels and flights."

The company will also review how it "presents shopping ads and content related services, such as sports." Google will apparently also make similar adjustments to AI Overviews and AI Mode.

The European Commission says it will "continue its dialogue with Google," and "monitor the implementation of these solutions which constitute substantial progress towards compliance." Google has already racked up billions in fines for various antitrust infringements throughout the EU, with the Commission most recently fining the company €4.1 billion for essentially forcing phone manufacturers to pre-load only Google products.

To rewind a bit, the Digital Markets Act (or DMA) is essentially a piece of antitrust legislation for the online sphere. It attempts to "make the markets in the digital sector fairer and more contestable" by identifying online "Gatekeepers" responsible for "core platform services, such as online search engines, app stores, messenger services." Google has been identified as one such 'Gatekeeper,' and therefore must adhere to a number of 'do's' and 'don'ts' within the EU.

For instance, earlier this year, in order to comply with the DMA, the European Commission proposed that Google share search data—"ranking, query, click and view data"—with third-party search engines. This is similar to a proposed remedy resulting from the 2024 antitrust ruling in the US, though Google has asked to delay data sharing while it appealed the original ruling. Google also has the opportunity to appeal today's European Commission decision.

The company has previously criticised the steps necessary to make Search DMA compliant; back in May, a spokesperson told Reuters, "The changes we've already made to Search under the DMA represent the ​biggest downgrade in the product's history, creating a ​second-rate experience ⁠for Europeans to the benefit of a few self-interested complainants."