EU issues rash of competition fines against US tech giants

The European Commission announced today it has fined Google €890 million ($1.02 billion) for breaches of online competition laws by giving priority to its own services in search results and down-ranking results for those of its rivals. That is a violation of the EU Digital Markets Act, adopted in 2022 to deal specifically with anti-competitive practices by tech companies. The Commission says Google also violated the DMA by preventing app developers from steering consumers towards cheaper offers from rivals.

This is only the latest in a string of such fines. In April the Commission fined Apple €500 million and Meta €200 million for DMA violations. The EU executive says Apple violated the DMA’s requirement that developers on their app store should be able to steer customers toward alternative offers outside the App Store. “Due to a number of restrictions imposed by Apple, app developers cannot fully benefit from the advantages of alternative distribution channels,” the Commission said. Separately, Meta was found to have violated the DMA’s requirement that they seek users’ consent for combining their personal data between services. They found that Meta’s new Facebook/Instagram policy of “consent or pay” for the use of their data did not fulfil the DMA’s requirement. EU users of Facebook and Instagram were offered a choice in 2023 between consenting to having their data processed or paying a monthly subscription. This “did not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data,” the Commission said.

For Google, €460 million of the fine relates to the search-related breach, while €430m relates to the app store violation. The Commission had already ordered Google to treat offers from rivals in its search results in a “fair and non-discriminatory manner”. “Today’s decisions send a clear message; we will not hesitate to use our tools to safeguard business and innovation opportunities opened up by the DMA,” said Commission Vice President for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen today. “Google must now bring the non-compliance to an end.”

But tech sovereignty advocates aren’t so convinced that this fine is actually going to discourage Google from continuing the anti-competitive practices. And they add that the Commission’s cautious approach is not going to do anything to stem on a separate issue, they have criticised the Commission for not publishing with this announcement a long-awaited decision on Google’s use of AI summaries of journalists’ work (more on that below). “Plenty of people would dodge the fare if the fine were cheaper than the ticket,” says German Member of the EU Parliament Alexandra Geese, the lead digital policy MEP for the Greens.