Google slapped with $1bn EU fine, holds talks to dodge further penalties
The European Union has fined Google about €890 million, or $1 billion. The fine punishes Google for breaking EU rules meant to control the power of big tech companies. But regulators also hinted that no more fines are coming soon, because Google is making good progress toward following the rules.
The fine has two parts. The first part, €460 million, is for Google favoring its own products. When people search for things like shopping, hotels, flights, or sports scores, Google often showed its own results first instead of treating competitors fairly. The second part, €430 million, is about the Google Play app store. Google had stopped app makers from telling users about cheaper deals outside the app store.
This is the first time Google has been fined under this specific EU law, called the Digital Markets Act. But counting older cases, Google has now paid six fines for unfair business practices. In total, the company has paid more than €10 billion in EU fines over about twenty years.
EU officials said they are just enforcing the law. “Our job is to make sure the rules are followed,” said Teresa Ribera, the EU’s top antitrust official. Another official, Henna Virkkunen, said the goal is fair competition. Google now has 60 days to fix its practices.
Google is not happy. A company spokesperson said the changes will hurt features people like, such as quick pricing for hotels and flights. He said the ruling is not really about fair competition, it is making Google’s products worse to please a small number of complainers.
Even so, there is good news for Google too. The EU said Google has already started testing new ways of showing search results more fairly. It called this real progress. The EU may also apply the same rules to Google’s AI tools, like AI Overviews. Talks about this are still ongoing. Google’s changes to its app store rules were also seen as a step in the right direction.
This fight is happening while tensions rise between the US and EU. The Trump administration says Europe is unfairly targeting American companies and has threatened tariffs in response. Some US lawmakers agree.
Google’s fine comes after the EU already fined Apple and Meta last year under the same law. It shows the EU is serious about controlling big tech, even as pressure grows from the US side.
