The European Commission has fined Google €890 million (about $1 billion) for breaking its rules meant to keep large tech companies from abusing their power. The fine is split into two parts: €460 million for Google unfairly pushing its own services to the top of search results, and €430 million for stopping app developers from telling Google Play users about cheaper ways to pay. Engadget

The Commission found that Google used its position as the world's most popular search engine to give its own shopping, travel, games, and other services an unfair advantage. Google's own offerings showed up prominently when people searched, while competing services were pushed further down the page. The EU's Digital Markets Act, or DMA, specifically bans this kind of self-favoring by large platforms and requires search rankings to be fair and transparent.

The second part of the fine is about Google Play, the app store on Android phones. Google was found to have unfairly stopped app developers from telling users about alternative payment options that would have cost less in fees. The DMA says that large platforms must let businesses promote offers and complete purchases with customers outside the platform without interference.

The DMA became law in 2022 to stop big tech platforms from using their dominance to squeeze out competitors. The Commission opened its review of Google on January 27, 2026, to help the company comply. European Commission By April 2026, a Commission document noted that Google had removed some links to its own services from search results as a step toward compliance. European Commission Those changes were not enough to satisfy the Commission.

Google has 60 days to fix the problems or face additional penalties of up to 5 percent of its total global revenue, charged every day until it complies. For context, the €890 million fine is less than 1 percent of Google's $112.1 billion in profit from a single quarter. Engadget

The fine comes alongside other legal losses for Google in Europe. The company recently lost its final appeal over a $4.7 billion fine related to its Android phone operating system, originally imposed in 2018. In 2024, Google also exhausted its appeals over a $2.8 billion fine for dominating shopping search results, originally imposed in 2017. Engadget

European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera is leading the enforcement effort. Google's general counsel Kent Walker is the company's representative in the case. Engadget

The core issue the Commission is pressing is whether a company that both runs a search engine and sells products on it can fairly rank its own offerings. Previous EU cases tackled similar behavior in Google Shopping, but those took years: the original shopping fine was imposed in 2017 and only finally upheld in 2024. The DMA was designed to speed things up by setting clear rules in advance rather than relying on slow, one-at-a-time legal cases. The 60-day deadline and the threat of daily fines reflect that goal.

The Play Store decision is the newer of the two. Regulators have questioned app store fees for years, but the DMA creates a specific written rule against blocking users from finding alternatives, rather than leaving it to be argued in court one case at a time. Google's removal of some of its own links from search results suggests it has already started changing its products in response to the DMA. Whether those changes satisfy the Commission will be determined within the 60-day window.

The wider picture here is that these fines, large as they sound, are unlikely to hurt Google financially. Google's total EU competition penalties now exceed $8 billion across the Android, Shopping, and DMA cases combined, not counting this new fine. For a company earning over $112 billion in a single quarter, the money is manageable. What is harder to measure is the impact of being forced to change how Search rankings work and how the Play Store handles payments. Those structural changes could shape how Google designs its products in Europe for years to come — and the Commission's approach of setting rules upfront, rather than suing after the fact, is its bet that faster enforcement will actually change how big platforms behave.