The news
On July 23, 2026, the European Commission imposed an €890 million Digital Markets Act fine on Google, finding that it favoured its own services in Search and stopped app developers from steering Google Play customers to cheaper offers elsewhere.
The penalty came in two non-compliance decisions: €460 million for self-preferencing in Google Search and €430 million for anti-steering rules on Google Play. The Commission said the fines reflect the gravity, duration and recurrence of the breaches. It opened both investigations into Google, a unit of Alphabet (GOOGL), on March 25, 2024, and gave its preliminary view on March 19, 2025.
On Search, the Commission found that Google gives its own shopping, hotel, transport and sports results more prominence than rival services, including spots at the top of the page and richer visuals and filters. The DMA, the EU's law for large "gatekeeper" platforms, requires such ranking to be fair and non-discriminatory. Google must now treat third-party services in its results on equal terms with its own.
On Google Play, the Commission said Google prevents developers from freely promoting offers and signing up customers in channels of their choice, including rival app stores. It accepted that Google may charge a fee for helping a developer win a new customer, but said Google's steering-related fees were too high and charged for too long. Before the decision, Google had introduced a new global Play fee structure on June 30, 2026 that permits steering but still charges a 10% service fee on steered recurring subscriptions, TechPolicy.Press reported.
The Commission credited Google with proposing and testing changes to how it shows free services such as shopping, hotels and flights, calling them substantial progress, and described Google's rolled-out steering changes as good progress. It is still assessing changes to shopping ads and sports content, and said talks will continue on applying the decision's principles to AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google's AI-generated search features. Google was given 60 days to comply or risk periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of its total worldwide turnover.
Google objected. "This implementation of the DMA continues to break everyday products," Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, said on July 23. He said Google would have to strip real-time features such as instant pricing and availability for hotels, flights and restaurants from European results and dismantle safety protections on Google Play. Teresa Ribera, the EU's competition chief, said the best products should win on merit rather than because their owner runs the search engine, according to TechPolicy.Press.
The numbers
- Total fine
- €890 million
- Search self-preferencing fine
- €460 million
- Google Play anti-steering fine
- €430 million
- Time to comply
- 60 days
- Maximum periodic penalty
- Up to 5% of worldwide turnover
- Investigations opened
- March 25, 2024
Why CEOs should care
For companies that sell subscriptions or digital goods through Android apps in Europe, the Play decision is a chance to lower distribution costs. CFOs should model what happens if more customers pay on the web instead of in the app, and product teams should ask Google which fees apply to steered sales, for how long, and whether terms will change again once the Commission finishes its assessment.
For marketers and for travel, retail and local businesses that depend on Google traffic, European results pages are being redesigned. In November 2024, Google said earlier DMA changes had cut direct booking clicks to airlines, hotels and small retailers by as much as 30%. Ask your search and ads teams to track European click-through by channel, and to budget for placements on the comparison sites that stand to gain prominence.
For boards and general counsel, the decision shows that DMA exposure does not end with a fine: the cease-and-desist order carries penalties tied to worldwide turnover, and regulators are already asking how the rules apply to AI answers. Companies building AI search or assistant products in Europe should plan for the same fair-ranking tests to reach them.
The bigger picture
The fine closed investigations the Commission opened in March 2024, and it landed one week after the Commission's separate July 16 orders requiring Google to open Android to rival AI assistants and share search data. Together they show Brussels using the DMA against Google's core products and pushing its principles into AI-driven search. TechPolicy.Press noted that U.S. officials have criticized DMA enforcement as a problem in trade talks with the EU.
What happened next
On September 8, 2026, Google said it would revamp European search results so that one specialised search service appears at the top, followed by two others with fewer details, with a carousel of hotels, airlines and restaurants below it stripped of features such as real-time prices, according to a Reuters report excerpted by Slashdot. Nick Fox, Google's senior vice president of knowledge and information, said the changes degrade the experience for Europeans and boost intermediaries at the expense of local businesses, the report said.
On September 29, Google appealed the Commission's separate July 16 Android and search data orders at the EU General Court, Euronews reported. The Commission noted on July 23 that Google may also appeal the fines. Watch for the Commission's assessment of whether Google's search and Play changes comply, since a negative finding could trigger periodic penalty payments.
