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<\/p>\nAlphabet’s Google was fined a total of \u20ac890m ($1 billion) today for flouting \u2060European Union rules aimed at reining in the power of Big Tech, the European Commission said.<\/p>\n
However, the US tech giant is likely to avoid fresh fines as EU regulators lauded good progress in its ongoing efforts to comply with the landmark legislation.<\/p>\n
The fines underscored Europe’s determination to prevent Big Tech companies from thwarting rivals, defying US criticism and retaliatory tariff threats.<\/p>\n
One fine of \u20ac460m was handed out to Google by the European Commission under the Digital Markets Act for favouring its own services in shopping, hotels, transport and sports results in search results.<\/p>\n
A second fine of \u20ac430m targeted Google’s restrictions on its app store Google Play preventing app developers from steering users free of charge to cheaper offers on rival app stores or websites.<\/p>\n
Reuters was the first to report on both fines, which are the first for the US tech giant under the DMA but the fifth and sixth overall for \u200canti-competitive practices, making for total penalties of \u20ac10.38 billion over \u2060nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
“Our duty and obligation is to comply with the laws, that our laws are fully respected,” EU antitrust chief Teresa Riberatold reporters when asked about US pushback.<\/p>\n
“The DMA is to make sure we have a fair and level playing field. With these decisions we want to make sure there is competition,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen told reporters.<\/p>\n
Google, which has 60 days to comply with the Commission’s orders to treat rivals in a fair and non-discriminatory manner and to allow app developers to steer users away from its appstore, \u200ccriticised the EU findings and said it might take the Commission to court.<\/p>\n
“To comply, we are having to strip away real-time Search features Europeans love – like instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights, and restaurants – and dismantle safety protections on \u2060Google Play,” Google President of Global Affairs Kent Walker said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“This isn’t fair competition; it’s product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants, \u200cwith European businesses and consumers taking the hit. Regulation should improve products, not make them worse,” he said.<\/p>\n
More fines unlikely give ‘constructive dialogue’<\/p>\n
The Commission, which \u200cacts as the EU competition enforcer, pointed to a “constructive dialogue” with Google and significant progress made to comply with the DMA, indicating that daily penalties for non-compliance are likely off the table.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Google has proposed and started testing changes to how it presents its own services on Google Search for free services such as shopping, hotels and flights,” the Commission said, calling it substantial progress.<\/p>\n
“The Commission also notes that \u2060Google has proposed and started testing changes to how it presents shopping ads and content related services, such as sports,” it said, adding it would assess the changes and continue \u2060talks with Google.<\/p>\n
The EU watchdog also said Google may apply the principles of today’s decision to its AI-generated summaries known as AI Overviews and AI Mode and that talks would continue to this end.<\/p>\n
Google’s changes to its steering terms on Google Play received a tentative thumbs up from the Commission.<\/p>\n
“These constitute good progress towards compliance and will also be assessed in light of the cease and desist order of today’s decision,” it said.<\/p>\n
Europe’s crackdown on Big Tech has angered US President Donald Trump’s administration, which has threatened to retaliate with tariffs for what he said are moves targeting US companies while US lawmakers have also piled on the pressure.<\/p>\n
The \u200cfines are the third under the DMA after penalties handed out to Apple and Meta Platforms in April last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alphabet’s Google was fined a total of \u20ac890m ($1 billion) today for flouting \u2060European Union rules aimed at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-564581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}