The European Commission today issued two non-compliance decisions against Google under the Digital Markets Act, imposing fines of 460 million euros for favouring its own services in search rankings and 430 million euros for restricting how app developers steer customers toward cheaper purchase channels. Google has 60 days to comply or faces periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of its total worldwide turnover.

Two decisions. Two separate breaches. One combined penalty of 890 migllion euros, and a compliance clock that started running today.

The European Commission announced the fines from Brussels on July 23, 2026, closing investigations it opened more than two years earlier. According to the Commission, the first decision concerns self-preferencing on Google Search, where the regulator found the company gives preferential treatment to its own shopping, hotels, transport and sports results over comparable third-party services. The second concerns anti-steering practices on Google Play, where the Commission found Google prevents app developers from freely communicating alternative offers to their own customers.

Both findings carry cease-and-desist orders. Both come with the same deadline.

What the Commission found on search rankings

Under the Digital Markets Act, gatekeepers are barred from treating their own services more favourably in ranking than third-party services. The regulation requires transparent, fair and non-discriminatory ranking conditions.

According to the Commission, Google displays its own services more prominently in search results, including at the top of the search results page or through enhanced visuals and filters, while similar third-party services do not receive the same prominence. That prominence gap is the substance of the breach.

The remedy ordered is specific: Google must treat third-party services appearing in its search results in a fair and non-discriminatory manner by reference to its own services.

Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, framed the finding in terms of competitive merit. "Google has fallen short of effective compliance with the Digital Markets Act, and today we have taken decisive yet balanced enforcement action sanctioning these breaches," she said, according to the Commission. "The best products should succeed because they're better, not because they're owned by the company running the search engine."

The verticals named in the decision - shopping, hotels, transport and sports - map closely onto the sectors that have complained loudest. Travel industry calls for stricter Google DMA enforcement documented how European travel technology bodies argued Google's hotel usage climbed from 37% in 2013 to 80% in 2023. Comparison shopping services have made a parallel case: Google search changes fail to comply with EU tech rules, comparison sites claim reported the December 2024 coalition objection to the more than 20 modifications Google had made to its European results a month earlier.

The Google Play steering decision

The second decision addresses a different mechanism entirely.

Under the DMA, app developers distributing through Google Play must be able to inform customers - free of charge - about alternative and often cheaper offers, and to direct them to those offers to make purchases, whether on websites or in alternative app stores. According to the Commission, Google failed to comply with that obligation.

The finding has two components. First, according to the Commission, Google prevents app developers from freely communicating and promoting offers and concluding contracts with users in distribution channels of their choice, including third-party app stores. Second, the Commission examined the fees. Google can lawfully receive a fee for facilitating the initial acquisition of a new customer via Google Play. But according to the Commission, the level of the steering-related fees Google charges, and the length of the charging period for those fees, went beyond what the DMA permits.

Fee level and fee duration, not the existence of a fee. That distinction defines the compliance question Google now has to answer.

The ordered remedy requires Google to allow app developers distributing via the Google Play Store, both technically and contractually, to freely communicate, promote offers and conclude contracts with users not only within but also outside the Google Play app store.

Partial credit for work already underway

The Commission's decision text does something enforcement decisions do not always do: it records progress.

According to the Commission, after what it describes as a constructive dialogue, 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 it will monitor implementation of these solutions, which it characterised as substantial progress towards compliance.

A second set of changes covering shopping ads and content-related services such as sports is still under assessment. The Commission said it is currently evaluating those changes and will continue dialogue with Google in light of today's decision.

Then there is the artificial intelligence question. According to the Commission, Google has submitted proposals on how it plans to apply the principles of the decision to AI Overviews and AI Mode. Dialogue on those proposals will continue. The Commission did not indicate a timeline.

That single sentence carries weight for anyone tracking where search visibility is heading. EU set to hit Google with record DMA fine before summer recess reported in May 2026 that Commission concern extended to whether deploying a proprietary language model to generate the dominant summary display in search results amounted to a new form of the same self-preferencing problem. Today's decision does not resolve that question. It defers it.

On steering, the Commission likewise noted that Google has rolled out changes to its steering terms, describing them as good progress towards compliance that will be assessed against the cease-and-desist order.

Sixty days, then percentage penalties

Google is required to comply with both decisions within 60 days. Failure to do so exposes the company to periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of its total worldwide turnover.

Periodic penalty payments work differently from a one-off fine. They accrue. A fixed 890 million euro penalty is a known quantity that can be provisioned for; a daily percentage of global turnover is an open-ended liability that scales with time. The 60-day window is therefore the operative deadline, not the fine itself.

Google may decide to appeal, according to the Commission. Appeals to the General Court do not automatically suspend the obligation to comply.

How the two cases got here

Google was designated a gatekeeper in September 2023 for Google Search. The Commission opened both non-compliance investigations on March 25, 2024. On March 19, 2025, it informed Google of its preliminary view that the company was in breach.

Between that preliminary finding and today's decision sits sixteen months. According to the Commission, Google exercised its rights of defence by examining in detail all documents in the two investigation files and replying comprehensively in writing to the preliminary findings. The decisions were adopted after what the Commission describes as a thorough investigation including feedback from market participants and extensive dialogue with Google.

The delay drew public criticism. 18 groups warn EU Commission: act on Google's search non-compliance now covered the March 2026 open letter in which eighteen European industry and consumer organisations demanded a formal non-compliance decision before the two-year mark of the proceedings, noting Google holds over 90% of EU search market share.

On fine calculation, the Commission stated it assessed the gravity, duration and recurrence of the breaches and concluded the level of fines imposed is proportionate and appropriate. The fines imposed take into account the gravity and duration of the non-compliance.

Where 890 million sits among EU penalties

Context matters for reading the number.

The combined 890 million euro total exceeds the 500 million euro fine issued to Apple and the 200 million euro fine issued to Meta in April 2025, the first major DMA enforcement actions. Tech giants hit with €700 million in fines for DMA violations covered those decisions, where Apple's penalty concerned the same anti-steering obligation now applied to Google Play.

Against Google's broader European liabilities, the figure is smaller. The Court of Justice confirmed a 4.125 billion euro Android fine on July 2, 2026, as Europe locks in Google's 4.1 billion Android fine as the click economy shifts documented. The Commission imposed a separate 2.95 billion euro penalty in September 2025 over publisher ad servers and programmatic buying. The DMA permits fines of up to 10% of global annual turnover for a first offence, rising to 20% for repeat infringements. Today's decisions land well below that ceiling.

The Commission's acknowledgement of Google's partial remediation offers one explanation for the gap between the theoretical maximum and the actual figure.

Why this matters for advertisers and publishers

The decision alters the regulatory footing beneath European search distribution, and the practical consequences run in several directions at once.

For comparison and vertical services, the finding establishes that prominence differentials in Google Search results constitute a DMA breach, not merely a commercial grievance. That establishes a liability record. Google loses 950 million pounds as court finds Shopping abuse never stopped reported the Stockholm judgment awarding damages to Klarna Technologies over comparison shopping harm, an illustration of how established public findings feed private damages claims.

For travel advertisers, the named inclusion of hotels and transport is directly relevant. Google merges travel ad formats into Search campaigns with AI Max noted research from Mirai finding hotels in DMA regions experienced a 30% drop in clicks and a 36% decrease in direct bookings compared with non-DMA markets. Whatever remedy Google implements will move those numbers again, in a direction that is not yet knowable.

For app developers and mobile marketers, the steering decision has immediate commercial arithmetic attached. If external offer communication becomes genuinely unrestricted and the fee period shortens, the economics of subscription acquisition through Google Play change. User acquisition strategies built around in-app purchase margins would need recalculating.

For anyone modelling AI search visibility, the deferred AI Overviews question is the most consequential open item in the document. The Commission has signalled that its self-preferencing principles apply to AI-generated search surfaces without specifying how. Google loses host privilege for AI Overviews on three grounds in Munich covered a separate German ruling on AI Overview liability, evidence that legal pressure on generative search surfaces is building across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously.

Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, tied both decisions to enforcement posture. "The two decisions we adopted today confirm our determination to apply the Digital Markets Act to safeguard business and innovation," she said, according to the Commission. "We found that Google harms businesses offering similar services, such as shopping or sports, by not granting them the same level of prominence on Google Search."

Virkkunen also published the substance of the announcement to her LinkedIn account, where she wrote that Google must now bring the non-compliance to an end and refrain from continuing it in the future, and that today's decisions send a clear message that the Commission will not hesitate to use its tools to safeguard business and innovation opportunities opened up by the DMA.

What remains unresolved

Three things stay open after today.

The AI Overviews and AI Mode proposals remain under discussion, with no stated deadline. The shopping ads and sports content changes are still being assessed. And the steering terms Google has already rolled out will be measured against the cease-and-desist order rather than accepted as settled compliance.

Enforcement, in other words, does not conclude with the fine. It shifts into a monitoring phase whose outcomes will surface in search results and app store terms rather than in press releases. Separate DMA action continues in parallel: EU forces 90%-dominant Google to share its search data covered binding specification decisions adopted on July 16, 2026, requiring Google to open Android to competing AI assistants and share anonymised search data with rival engines.

The Commission said it continues to engage with Google to ensure compliance with today's decisions and with the DMA more generally.

Timeline

Summary

Who: The European Commission, with Executive Vice-Presidents Teresa Ribera and Henna Virkkunen fronting the announcement, issued two non-compliance decisions against Alphabet's Google. The decisions affect third-party comparison, travel, shopping and sports services appearing in Google Search results, and app developers distributing through the Google Play Store across the European Union.

What: Two Digital Markets Act non-compliance decisions carrying fines of 460 million euros for self-preferencing Google's own services in search rankings and 430 million euros for restricting app developers from steering customers to alternative purchase channels, totalling 890 million euros. Both decisions include cease-and-desist orders requiring specific remedial measures.

When: July 23, 2026, following investigations opened on March 25, 2024 and preliminary findings communicated on March 19, 2025. Google has 60 days from the decisions to comply.

Where: Brussels, applying to Google's operations across the European Union under the Digital Markets Act framework binding since March 2024.

Why: The Commission found Google displays its own shopping, hotels, transport and sports services more prominently in search results than comparable third-party services, breaching the DMA's ranking obligations, and that Google's restrictions and fee structures on Google Play prevented developers from freely promoting cheaper offers outside the store. Non-compliance after 60 days exposes Google to periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of total worldwide turnover.