The European Commission’s decision to fine Google €890 million (US$1 billion) for failing to comply with the EU Digital Markets Act sounds like a significant financial and political intervention against one of the world’s largest technology companies.
Author
- Iain Nash
Associate Director and Senior Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence and Technology Law, Edge Hill University
The ruling is certainly further evidence of Europe’s desire to regulate US big tech platforms more strictly.
But can such fines really change the behaviour of companies like Google, whose global resources and technical capabilities substantially exceed those of the institutions responsible for regulating them?
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported revenues of approximately US$402.8 billion (£302bn) for 2025, and a net income of US$132.2 billion. The EU fine represents less than 0.3% of one year’s revenue.
This makes it, simultaneously, one of the largest penalties imposed under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and a financially manageable cost for the company receiving it. But that does not mean the penalty is irrelevant. Fines can also carry reputational costs, establish legal boundaries, and create a basis for more serious sanctions.
Europe has been here before
The European Commission has been here before. In 2004, after a five-year investigation, it fined Microsoft more than €497 million for using its position in PC operating systems to restrict competition in adjacent software markets.
Just under a decade later, the same company was fined a further €561 million, after it failed to provide the browser-choice screen it had committed to making available to European Windows users. This judgment was significant, as it showed the initial legal decision was only one stage of the commission’s enforcement process.
Google has since become the principal focus of EU technology concerns. The commission opened proceedings over the company’s comparison-shopping practices in November 2010, finally imposing a €2.42 billion fine in June 2017. A separate three-year investigation into restrictions associated with Google’s mobile operating system, Android, resulted in a €4.34 billion fine in July 2018.
Brussels has used the DMA against other big tech gatekeepers too. In April 2025, it fined Apple €500 million for breaching its anti-steering obligation – which forbids online platforms from blocking out cheaper rival deals – and Meta €200 million in connection with the choices it offered users about their personal data.
While these decisions demonstrated the commission’s willingness to intervene, they also established a recurring pattern: an investigation is opened and a substantial fine is imposed. Then, the company in question introduces a series of technical or contractual changes, only for a further dispute to emerge over whether those changes amount to effective compliance.
In short, the central difficulty is not the absence of legal authority. It is the translation of that authority into timely, measurable changes in market behaviour.
Do fines change big tech behaviour?
There are three main ways in which the effectiveness of a fine such as this can be assessed:
1. Formal compliance: has the company amended its contracts, interfaces or internal policies in response to the decision?
2. Market effectiveness: have the changes given competitors a meaningful opportunity to reach customers, enabled app developers to offer lower prices, or increased consumer choice?
3. Deterrence: has the penalty made Google – and other gatekeepers – less likely to engage in equivalent conduct through future services, product designs or contractual arrangements?
A 2025 study examined the implementation and effectiveness of company responses in 12 major EU antitrust cases. Although most of the imposed remedies had been implemented, fewer than half were found to have been fully effective.
So, it’s not enough to ask whether Google will change the appearance of a search page or amend the wording of its developer terms in response to this latest fine. The commission must assess whether, after Google’s 60-day compliance period , competing services receive meaningful visibility, rival companies can communicate with customers without excessive friction or fees, and consumers are genuinely able to exercise greater choice.
A criticism levelled at regulators in many jurisdictions is that investigations are too slow to curb anti-competitive behaviour. Article 29 of the DMA states that the European Commission should adopt a non-compliance decision within 12 months of opening proceedings.
This is an aspirational timetable, rather than an absolute legal deadline. Nevertheless, the present Google investigations were opened on March 25, 2024 and concluded on July 23, 2026 – approximately 28 months later.
A January 2026 consultation highlighted complaints about the DMA’s slow processes and limited transparency, as well as circumvention and delaying tactics on the part of big tech companies. Suggested changes included binding procedural timelines, independent audits, and public testing of the remedies imposed by the European Commission.
The speed of technological change
When the EU’s latest proceedings against Google began in March 2024, much of the digital competition debate concerned the ordering and presentation of conventional search results. During the investigation, however, Google continued to develop AI Overviews and AI Mode , which offer users AI-generated answers, summaries and recommendations rather than a traditional page of ranked links.
This creates a significant enforcement problem. Self-preferencing can occur not only through the vertical ranking of links, but through the selection of sources, the framing of an answer, the services through which a transaction is completed and the options presented to the user by an AI agent.
Accordingly, the issue should not be whether a rival service has been given a particular box on a search page. It should be whether competing services have a fair and effective opportunity to be discovered, selected and used, irrespective of whether the interaction takes place through a conventional search result, an AI-generated answer, or an automated purchasing agent.
The commission’s ruling announcement recognised this rapid technological development. It also noted that Google had submitted proposals concerning how the principles of the decision should apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that discussions on these services would continue.
Ultimately, the fine represents an early test of whether the DMA can remain relevant as the technology changes. It is this, not the size of the initial fine, that will decide whether Europe really can keep big tech in check.
