The European Commission’s €890 million or roughly $1 billion penalty against Alphabet amounts to less than one day of the company’s 2025 revenue. The larger exposure comes from the remedy, which requires Google to alter how it displays its own services in Search and how Play Store developers direct customers toward purchases elsewhere.
The Commission issued two separate Digital Markets Act decisions on Thursday. Google was fined €460 million for favoring its own shopping, hotel, transport, and sports services in search results. A second €430 million penalty covered restrictions preventing app developers from freely promoting and completing purchases through websites, competing app stores, and other channels.
Regulators are also discussing whether the same principles should govern Google’s AI-generated search results.
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Alphabet generated $403.0 billion of revenue in 2025, making the approximately $1.0 billion charge equal to roughly 0.25% of annual sales. The fine is therefore unlikely to create a material financial burden by itself.
The required changes affect Search and Google Play, two platforms central to the company’s advertising and mobile distribution businesses, AP News reports.
The Commission found that Google gave its services more prominent placement through top-of-page positions, enhanced visuals, and specialized filters that were not equally available to competing services. The DMA prohibits designated gatekeepers from ranking their own offerings more favorably than comparable third-party products.
On Google Play, the Commission said developers were not free to communicate alternative offers or complete transactions through channels of their choice. Although Google may charge for helping a developer acquire a customer through the Play Store, regulators concluded that its steering-related fees were too high and remained in effect for too long.
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Google has 60 days to comply with the orders. Continued non-compliance could expose the company to periodic penalties of up to 5% of its average daily worldwide turnover, although Reuters reported that additional fines appear less likely because regulators described their discussions with Google as constructive.
The company has already begun testing changes to shopping, hotel, flight, advertising, and sports results. The Commission characterized the tests as substantial progress and gave a similarly tentative assessment of Google’s revised Play Store steering terms.
The AI Search question
In addition, Reuters reported that the Commission expects Google to consider how Thursday’s decision applies to AI Overviews and AI Mode, with further discussions planned. That could extend the DMA’s ban on self-preferencing from traditional search modules into interfaces that generate consolidated answers rather than presenting only ranked links.
The issue is whether Google’s AI results may give its own commercial products, information services, or transaction tools greater visibility than comparable third-party offerings.
Google rejected the Commission’s framing. Kent Walker, the company’s president of global affairs, called the decision “product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants.” Google said compliance was forcing it to remove real-time pricing and availability features for hotels, flights, and restaurants while weakening safety protections on Google Play.
The Commission opened the two investigations on March 25, 2024, shortly after the DMA’s obligations became enforceable. It initially said it intended to conclude the proceedings within 12 months. Preliminary findings against Alphabet followed on March 19, 2025, while the final decisions arrived on July 23, 2026.
The penalties make Google the third company fined under the DMA, following the Commission’s €500 million penalty against Apple and €200 million fine against Meta Platforms in April 2025. Unlike traditional antitrust cases, which can remain in litigation for years, the DMA allows regulators to impose specific operating requirements directly on designated gatekeepers.
