EU fines Google 890 million euros over digital rules

The European Union fined Google 890 million euros, or about $1 billion, on 23 July for breaking digital competition rules, in a decision that could add to tensions with the United States.

The EU imposed a 460 million euro fine on the US company for illegally favouring its own services, such as Google Flights and Google Hotels, over rival services in search results. The European Commission said a second fine of 430 million euros was imposed because Google did not allow app developers to show consumers offers, free of charge, outside the Google Play store.

EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said the decision was intended to support more competition and allow other companies to innovate. A senior EU official said Google still continued to favour its own services, while the second fine covered the period from March 2024 to December 2025.

Google rejected the EU's position. Kent Walker, Google's head of global affairs, said regulation should improve products rather than make them worse. He said the company was being forced to remove real-time search features used in Europe, including instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights and restaurants, and to dismantle safety protections on Google Play. He said this was not fair competition.

The fines are the largest total imposed on one company under the EU's Digital Markets Act. The EU previously fined Meta 200 million euros and Apple 500 million euros under the same law in 2025. The Digital Markets Act took effect in 2024 and is intended to limit conduct by large technology companies that the EU says harms fair digital competition.

The European Commission said the fines could increase if Google does not comply within 60 days, including through periodic penalty payments. An EU official said the fines represented 0.22 percent of Google's turnover. Under the Digital Markets Act, the EU can impose fines of up to 10 percent of a company's total global turnover.

EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said the best products should succeed because they are better, not because they are owned by the company running the search engine. She also said the EU had a duty to ensure that rules adopted by its institutions are enforced and respected.

The decision comes before the first anniversary of a tariff deal between Washington and Brussels that eased trade tensions. President Donald Trump's administration has accused Brussels of targeting US technology companies and has threatened tariffs in response. The EU and the United States agreed this year to discuss frictions linked to EU digital rules, but those talks have not yet begun.

The report also said 25 Republican lawmakers in the United States sent a letter on Tuesday urging Trump to use tools against what they called the EU's discriminatory digital rules, including trade investigations that could lead to higher levies. Virkkunen said Europe remained committed to enforcing its rules.

Google has previously faced several EU penalties. Between 2017 and 2019, the EU fined the company a total of 8.2 billion euros. Brussels also imposed a 2.95 billion euro fine in a separate antitrust case in September last year, after which Trump threatened retaliation against the EU.