Eighteen European industry groups urge the European Commission to issue a formal DMA non-compliance decision against Alphabet before March 25, 2026, as Google holds over 90% of EU search market share.
Eighteen European industry and consumer organisations today urged the European Commission to issue a formal non-compliance decision against Alphabet before March 25, 2026 - the two-year mark of the Commission's open proceedings into Google's self-preferencing practices in Search. The open letter, dated March 15, 2026, and addressed to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and two Executive Vice-Presidents, marks one of the most explicit public demands from a cross-sector coalition since proceedings began, and arrives with the Commission already approximately 12 months beyond the statutory benchmark for adopting such a decision.
The Digital Markets Act designated Alphabet as a gatekeeper in May 2023, with obligations becoming legally binding in March 2024. Within weeks of that compliance date, the Commission opened proceedings examining whether Google Search violated the DMA's prohibition on self-preferencing - a practice the signatories describe as having continued unchecked for two full years.
The organisations behind the letter span a deliberately wide range of sectors. They include ACT - Association of Commercial Television in Europe, BEUC - The European Consumer Organisation, Eu Travel Tech, the European Magazine Media Association (EMMA), the European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA), the European Publishers Council (EPC), the European Tech Alliance (EUTA), France Digitale, the Future of Technology Institute (FoTI), the German Newspaper Publishers and Digitalpublishers Association (BDZV), the German Startup Association, the Innovate Europe Foundation (IE.F), the Initiative for Neutral Search, the Italian Tech Alliance, MVFP - Medienverband der freien Presse, the Open Markets Institute, PRIMET - the Association of Private Meteorological Services, and Rebalance Now.
The breadth is deliberate. According to the letter, the signatories "represent a broad and diverse coalition spanning travel, music streaming, news and magazine publishing, online platforms and marketplaces, broadcast media, startups and scaleups, digital rights, and consumer organisations." Their joint message: Alphabet commands over 90% of the EU search market, and every day without a formal decision is another day in which European businesses across dozens of sectors operate at a systematic disadvantage.
The document does not mince words about the state of proceedings. According to the coalition, "almost two years after the opening of proceedings, Alphabet continues the very self-preferencing practices in Google Search that prompted them." Its own services, the letter states, are "still granted visual prominence, enhanced functionality, and preferential placement categorically denied to rival services." That characterisation of ongoing harm - described as "real, ongoing, and well-documented" - is central to the organisations' argument that dialogue has run its course.
Alphabet has put forward what the coalition calls "numerous non-compliant changes" to the Google Search Results Page. These proposals are said to have addressed part of the problem only. Critically, the letter highlights a structural gap in the discussions: "Too little of the discussions have addressed the paid ads section and how self-preferenced AI features are integrated into Google Search." This is a pointed observation. As AI-powered features have become more prominent in Search results, the question of whether they represent a new form of self-preferencing has gained urgency. The European Commission opened a formal investigation into Google's AI content practices in December 2025, examining publisher compensation and opt-out mechanisms.
The coalition invokes specific provisions of the DMA. Article 29(2) sets a 12-month benchmark from the opening of non-compliance proceedings for adopting a formal decision. According to the letter, the Commission is now approximately 12 months past that deadline. The signatories therefore demand that the Commission adopt a formal non-compliance decision with "clear and robust cease-and-desist requirements," alongside fines "of sufficient deterrent value to make continued non-compliance genuinely unprofitable."
Beyond a formal decision, the letter calls for escalation tools if Alphabet fails to comply. These include interim measuresunder Article 24 DMA and periodic penalties under Article 31 DMA. The language is unambiguous: "DMA non-compliance cannot be a profitable business strategy for Alphabet."
To understand why the March 25 date carries weight, some context is necessary. The DMA entered into force in November 2022 and became fully applicable in May 2023, when the Commission designated six major technology companies as gatekeepers. Google's obligations became legally binding in March 2024, at which point the company began introducing modifications to its European search functionality. By November 2024, Google had announced more than 20 distinct modifications to search, including new comparison site promotion units, modified advertising systems, and testing in Germany, Belgium, and Estonia following over 100 conferences and roundtables with stakeholders.
None of it satisfied the market. In December 2024, a coalition of over 20 European price comparison websites criticised Google's proposed alterations, stating they failed to address fundamental DMA violations. The Commission then released preliminary findings in March 2025 that Alphabet may be failing to comply with Article 6(5) of the DMA - the provision prohibiting gatekeepers from treating their own services more favourably than similar third-party services. Those findings were followed, just one week later, by Google's expansion of AI Overviews to nine European countries, a move that drew renewed regulatory attention.
The travel sector has been among the most vocal. According to data compiled by eu travel tech, Google's share of European hotel usage grew from 10% in 2013 to 80% by 2023. Hotels in DMA regions experienced a 30% drop in clicks and a 36% decrease in direct bookings compared to non-DMA markets, according to research from hospitality technology company Mirai. Google Flights' market share in Germany reached 22.2% in the same year. These figures illustrate the concrete commercial territory at stake - not hypothetical competitive harm, but documented market capture across specific verticals.
The letter arrives in a complicated geopolitical moment. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been pushing Brussels to roll back technology regulation in exchange for trade concessions. That pressure intensified following the Trump administration's decision to bar five European officials from entering the US in January 2026, with former commissioners publishing a joint rebuttal defending the DMA as a market regulation rather than a censorship instrument. The coalition's letter implicitly addresses this context by warning that failure to act would "send a damaging signal that the most powerful gatekeepers can continue to act with impunity."
Tim Cowen, Chair of Antitrust Practice at Preiskel & Co LLP, reacted to the letter's publication on LinkedIn with a question that cuts to the procedural heart of the matter: according to his comment, "Google will appeal any decision through the EU court system." He noted that the last time the Commission adopted a decision about discriminatory search results - in 2017 - the appeals process ran seven years through to a final Court of Justice of the European Union judgement. His conclusion was not to avoid a decision, but rather that it is "better to get the timetable running."
That observation is legally significant. The DMA was designed in part to avoid the slowness of traditional competition law proceedings. Yet if the Commission continues to defer a formal decision, the practical gap between the DMA's stated objectives and its enforcement reality widens. The coalition's letter frames this starkly: "After two years of investigation, one year of preliminary findings, and compliance discussions that have led nowhere, the time for dialogue has passed."
One of the most technically specific passages in the letter concerns the paid advertising section of Google Search. Discussions have, according to the signatories, focused on organic search results, which are "becoming less relevant day by day." The real problem, in the coalition's framing, lies in paid ads and in how AI features integrate with search results in ways that may systematically advantage Google's own properties.
This matters for the digital advertising community in particular. The European Commission imposed a €2.95 billion fine on Google in September 2025 for advertising technology violations, finding that the company violated Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union by favouring its own advertising technology services over competitors between 2014 and 2025. That case focused on the ad server and programmatic buying stack - DoubleClick for Publishers, Google Ads, and DV360. The DMA proceedings, by contrast, focus on search results as a gateway. But the two are connected: if organic results are hollowed out by AI features while paid slots are allocated in ways that favour Google's own properties, the combined effect on the competitive landscape could be more severe than either proceeding captures individually.
The Commission published the provisional public version of its AdTech antitrust decision in January 2026, as market testing of Google's proposed behavioural remedies continued. Competition lawyer Damien Geradin characterised those remedies as "entirely useless," predicting the Commission would conclude that structural changes are necessary. The open letter from the 18 organisations fits into this broader enforcement pattern: formal proceedings that have reached preliminary conclusions but not yet produced enforceable decisions.
The DMA gives the Commission a range of enforcement tools. A non-compliance decision under Article 26 can be accompanied by fines of up to 10% of Alphabet's global annual revenue. For repeated violations, that figure rises to 20%. The coalition's letter calls specifically for fines set at levels that would make non-compliance "genuinely unprofitable" - language that implies figures well above token penalties. Alphabet's fourth quarter 2025 revenues reached $113.8 billion, with advertising generating $81.5 billion in that quarter alone, representing 14% year-over-year growth. A 10% global revenue fine, calculated on Alphabet's full-year figures, would represent a sum of a different order than any fine levied against a technology company in Europe to date.
Beyond fines, the letter demands cease-and-desist requirements - structural behavioural obligations that would compel Alphabet to end specific practices rather than merely pay a penalty. This reflects a view, shared by competition lawyers and publisher groups, that monetary fines alone do not alter the underlying incentive structure. Angela Mills Wade, Executive Director of the European Publishers Council, made precisely this point after the September 2025 AdTech decision: according to her statement, "a fine will not fix Google's abuse of its adtech," calling for measures that change behaviour at the structural level.
If Alphabet fails to comply with a formal decision, the letter calls for two further escalation tools. Article 24 DMA allows the Commission to impose interim measures to prevent immediate competitive harm during ongoing proceedings - a mechanism that has rarely been used but exists precisely for situations where delay would compound harm. Article 31 DMA allows periodic penalty payments, calculated daily, to compel compliance. These are not symbolic tools. They represent a legal escalation ladder designed to make non-compliance progressively more costly the longer it continues.
For marketing professionals operating in European markets, the letter's substance - and the Commission's response to it - has direct practical implications. Search advertising in Europe takes place within a competitive landscape that is, by the Commission's own preliminary finding, potentially distorted by the preferential treatment of Google's own services. If paid ads and AI features are structured in ways that advantage Google Shopping, Google Hotels, or Google Flights over third-party alternatives, the effective CPCs and conversion rates advertisers observe may reflect a systematically altered marketplace rather than genuine consumer preference.
The question of how AI features interact with paid search is particularly live. Google has defended AI Overviews and AI Mode as beneficial to the broader web ecosystem, citing a 45% increase in unique new pages crawled between April 2023 and April 2025. Publishers and researchers have documented a different picture: organic click-through rates for queries featuring AI Overviews dropped from 1.41% to 0.64% year-over-year in one study of approximately 10,000 keywords with informational intent - a 54.6% decrease. If AI features reduce organic traffic to third-party sites while simultaneously directing users toward Google's own verticals, the advertising marketplace adjusts accordingly.
The 18 organisations that signed this letter represent businesses and consumers whose commercial interests are directly affected by these dynamics. Their willingness to address the Commission collectively, in writing, with explicit deadlines and specific legal demands, reflects accumulated frustration with a process that has run for two years without a binding outcome. March 25, 2026 is ten days away. The Commission's response - or its silence - will itself be informative.
Who: Eighteen European industry, media, travel, startup, and consumer organisations - led publicly by BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation - addressed a joint letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera, and Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen. The letter also cites Tim Cowen, Chair of Antitrust Practice at Preiskel & Co LLP, as an external legal voice acknowledging the appeal risk.
What: The organisations demand a formal DMA non-compliance decision against Alphabet before March 25, 2026, including cease-and-desist requirements and fines sufficient to make non-compliance unprofitable. They additionally call for escalation through interim measures under Article 24 DMA and periodic penalties under Article 31 DMA if Alphabet fails to comply.
When: The letter is dated March 15, 2026. The deadline it invokes - March 25, 2026 - marks two years since the Commission opened non-compliance proceedings into Google Search. Article 29(2) DMA set a 12-month benchmark for adopting a formal decision; the Commission is now approximately 12 months past that benchmark.
Where: The letter is addressed to the European Commission in Brussels. The conduct at issue covers Google Search across EU member states, where Alphabet commands over 90% of the search market.
Why: According to the coalition, Alphabet has continued self-preferencing practices in Google Search throughout the two years of proceedings - granting its own services visual prominence, enhanced functionality, and preferential placement denied to rivals. The organisations argue that failure to act decisively would validate the strategy of profitable non-compliance, harm European businesses and consumers across dozens of sectors, and undermine the DMA's foundational credibility as an enforcement instrument.