Google fined $1 billion by EU for search engine practices

In a decision likely to intensify transatlantic trade tensions, European Union regulators on Thursday fined Google $1 billion for illegally undercutting competitors through its dominance as a search engine.

President Trump has previously threatened retaliation against the European Union for what he sees as unfair targeting of American technology companies. Google’s decision comes as it considers a fresh round of tariffs on the European Union and other major trading partners.

In explaining Thursday’s 890 million euro fine, regulators in Brussels said Google used its position as the world’s largest search engine to unfairly boost its services in areas such as shopping, travel, games and language translation. According to regulators, Google displayed its own services more prominently at the top of search results, while relegating competing services further down the page.

The European Commission, which led the investigation, also concluded that the tech giant used unfair restrictions on its Google Play app store that prevent app developers from communicating with users or conducting transactions that could reduce the fees Google can collect.

The commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said Google violated the Digital Markets Act, known as the DMA, a law passed in 2022 to prevent the biggest tech platforms from using their interconnected services to pigeonhole users and squeeze out competitors. The authorities argued that the biggest technology companies have become so dominant in areas such as internet search, smartphones, e-commerce and social media that they serve as gatekeepers and determine the fate of other businesses and can harm competition.

“The best products should succeed because they are better, not because they own the search engine company,” Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s executive vice president overseeing competition policy, said in a statement Thursday. “This is the promise of the DMA to protect fairness, choice and innovation in digital markets for the benefit of all European citizens.”

Google has 60 days to comply with the decision, including increasing the prominence of competing online services, or risk further penalties of up to 5 percent of its global revenue.

The company has been a frequent target of European Union regulators over the past decade, fined more than €10 billion as of 2017. Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, said Thursday’s decision would require product design changes that would hurt services for European users.

“This is not a fair competition, it is a degradation of the product,” he said. “Regulation should improve products, not make them worse.”

The fine is small compared to Google’s overall business. On Wednesday, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reported quarterly earnings of $112.1 billion, boosted by investments in SpaceX and Anthropic.

Officials in Brussels will wait to see how Mr. Trump reacts to Thursday’s decision. On Friday, the White House is expected to announce new tariffs on trade with the European Union and other countries.

A European Union official said the fine was announced on Thursday because it was prepared — regardless of U.S. trade developments — and that it would not come as a surprise to the Trump administration.

Since his first days back in the White House, Mr Trump has warned he will take “responsible action” against regulation of US technology firms.

Last month, Mr Trump threatened to impose tariffs on US companies against countries for taxes on digital services. In December, the Office of the US Trade Representative he said European companies including Swedish music service Spotify, German industrial giant Siemens and French artificial intelligence developer Mistral could be targeted by the charges or new restrictions.

American regulators also focused on Google. Last year, the company was ordered to share search results and some data with rival companies in a landmark antitrust case that bears some similarities to Thursday’s ruling in Brussels.

The European Union has long been the most aggressive regulator of the technology industry in the world in areas such as privacy, competition and harmful online content. Even as leaders in the region have taken steps to ease rules on artificial intelligence and other technologies to boost economic growth, the bloc has made progress in investigating and punishing some of the industry’s biggest companies.

Google this month ordered European Union regulators to lift restrictions that limit how rival AI companies can reach Android smartphone users. Meta was asked this month to make major design changes to Instagram and Facebook to make the services less addictive.

European regulators have also targeted Chinese companies. Alibaba’s AliExpress was fined $629 million last week for selling illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products on its platform. In February, ByteDance-owned TikTok was told to make changes to make its service less addictive.

The European Union is also considering a law that would ban young people from accessing social networks.