The European Commission has pocketed more than $6 billion in big tech fines this month alone
EU regulators have fined Google €890 million ($1 billion) for anti-competitive practices, days after the European Commission confirmed that it will use another €4.6 billion fine against the US tech giant to plug its budget deficit.
Two fines were handed down on Thursday by the European Commission. Google was fined €460 million for prioritizing its own services – such as shopping and travel deals – over those of rival companies in search results, in violation of the EU’s Digital Markets Act. A second fine of €430 million punished Google for preventing app developers listed on the Google Play marketplace from steering users to cheaper offers on rival app stores.
“The DMA is to make sure we have a fair and level playing field,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said on Thursday. “With these decisions we want to make sure there is competition.”
Google, which now has 60 days to give its rivals equal prominence in search results, condemned the decision.
“To comply, we are having to strip away real-time search features Europeans love – like instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights, and restaurants,” Google global affairs chief Kent Walker said in a statement. “This isn’t fair competition; it’s product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants.”
Earlier this month, Google lost a years-long legal battle against a separate €4.6 billion EU antitrust fine. The European Commission imposed the fine in 2018, accusing Google of abusing Android’s market dominance by requiring smartphone makers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome.
European Commission fines are paid directly into the EU’s common budget. A commission spokesperson told Politico last week that the €4.6 billion payout – equal to more than 2% of the bloc’s annual budget – would be used to alleviate the EU’s growing deficit.
With Brussels urging member states to increase their military budgets, ramping up its own defense expenditure, and borrowing tens of billions of euros to prop up Ukraine, the bloc’s budget deficit is projected to reach 3.6% of GDP by 2027. The EU has approved a €90 billion Ukraine support loan for 2026-2027, tripled its spending on its ‘European Peace Facility’ weapons fund from 2021 to 2026, and hiked its common ‘European Defense Fund’ from €590 million to €8 billion in the same period.
As the EU struggles to meet its commitments to Ukraine and build out its own, independent tech stack, fining foreign tech companies has proven to be a lucrative source of revenue. Earlier this week, the commission imposed a €550 million penalty on AliExpress over the Chinese platform’s alleged failure to stop the sale of counterfeit goods.
In total, this month’s fines to Google and AliExpress add up to €6.04 billion, more than the yearly contributions of Portugal, Finland, Greece, and Cyprus combined.
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