Google faces renewed pressure to reshape its European search results, following a Reuters report published on February 25, 2026, that the company is preparing to test changes that would give rival vertical search services more prominent placement - a move driven by mounting regulatory risk under the Digital Markets Act.

According to Reuters reporter Foo Yun Chee, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter, the planned test would display both Google's own results and those of competing vertical search services (VSS) covering hotels, airlines, restaurants, and transport. The key technical detail: top-ranked vertical search engines would be shown by default. Hotels, airlines, restaurants, and transport services with real-time data from feeds would sit either below or above the list of vertical search engines, according to the source. The changes are expected to roll out across Europe initially focusing on lodgings, with flights and other categories to follow.

The European Commission declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

What makes this news particularly significant - and somewhat contested - is the context. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable noted on February 26, 2026, that similar changes have been observed for roughly two years already. These are the so-called DMA chips, where Google surfaces vertical search services within results under Digital Markets Act compliance obligations. The Google Search team formally announced changes including new rich results, aggregator units, and refinement chips in February 2024. Further modifications were documented in November 2024 and December 2024, with Google publicly stating that the display of these results is algorithmic.

So why does this Reuters exclusive carry weight now? The answer lies in the financial stakes. According to Reuters, fines for Digital Markets Act breaches can reach up to 10 percent of a company's global annual revenue. For Alphabet, whose 2024 annual revenues exceeded $300 billion, that figure represents a potential liability of more than $30 billion. Google has already accumulated 9.71 billion euros - approximately $11.5 billion at current exchange rates - in fines since 2017 for various antitrust infringements across Europe. That cumulative total includes a €2.95 billion fine imposed on September 5, 2025, for abusing dominant positions in publisher ad server and programmatic ad buying markets, the fourth such prohibition decision against the company.

The Digital Markets Act was adopted in July 2022 and designated six major technology companies as gatekeepers in May 2023. Google's obligations under the legislation became legally binding in March 2024. Since then, the company has introduced more than 20 distinct modifications to its European search functionality, including new comparison site promotion units, modified advertising systems, and the removal of interactive flight information displays. Testing has occurred in Germany, Belgium, and Estonia, following over 100 conferences and roundtables with stakeholders. Despite this effort, European comparison sites criticized Google's compliance approach in December 2024, with a coalition of more than 20 price comparison websites stating that the modifications failed to address fundamental DMA violations.

The core regulatory dispute pits Google against vertical search services linked to hotels, airlines, and restaurants - companies and platforms that aggregate real-time inventory data and compete directly with Google's own travel-related products. According to Reuters, Google has come up with various proposals to mollify rivals and EU regulators since it was charged last March with breaching the Digital Markets Act, but has yet to implement any of those proposals after rivals complained that the measures were insufficient.

The travel industry has been particularly vocal. Data compiled by eu travel tech, the organization representing European online travel industry interests, showed Google's hotel usage growing from 37 percent of European hotels in 2013 to 80 percent by 2023, based on a HOTREC distribution study. Google Flights' market share in Germany reached 22.2 percent in the same year. For the online travel advertising ecosystem, these figures illustrate just how much commercial territory is at stake in the current regulatory contest.

Research from hospitality technology company Mirai documented that hotels in DMA regions experienced a 30 percent drop in clicks and a 36 percent decrease in direct bookings compared to non-DMA markets following Google's initial compliance changes. That data point, gathered in May 2024, reflects an unintended consequence that Google itself has leaned on heavily in its regulatory arguments: that compliance modifications have pushed users toward online travel agencies rather than direct hotel websites, increasing intermediary dependence rather than reducing it.

Google formalized that argument in its submission to the European Commission's DMA review consultation, which closed in September 2025. The company claimed its compliance efforts degraded services and resulted in €114 billion in losses for European businesses, pointing specifically to changes in how hotels and flights appear in search results. Competition lawyer Thomas Höppner, a partner at GERADIN specializing in Digital Markets Act litigation, disputed this framing, arguing that the removal of direct links was a strategic decision by Google rather than a regulatory mandate. "The DMA does not force a designated search engine to remove direct links to hotels, flights, and restaurants. Nowhere, ever," according to Höppner's commentary.

The transatlantic dimensions of this regulatory contest add further complexity. According to Reuters, the EU crackdown on Big Tech for squeezing out rivals has sharpened tensions with the United States, prompting tariff threats and a visa ban against a former European Commission official who spearheaded landmark digital services legislation. Former EU commissioners published a joint rebuttal in January 2026 defending the digital rules framework against characterizations by the Trump administration that the regulations amounted to censorship of American companies.

For digital marketing professionals and paid search advertisers operating in European markets, the implications of the planned test are concrete. A format where top-ranked vertical search services appear by default in hotel and flight queries would fundamentally alter traffic distribution across the conversion funnel. Advertisers investing in Google Hotel Ads or Google Flights campaigns would be competing for placements in a result set that now prominently features Booking.com, Kayak, Skyscanner, or similar aggregators by default - before users ever interact with Google's own products. The click-through economics for hotel and flight advertisers would shift accordingly.

Programmatic advertising implications extend further. The Reuters source indicated that real-time data feeds form a core technical component of the planned display format. Transport services and accommodation providers with feed-based inventory would sit adjacent to vertical search engines. That architecture mirrors the Travel Feeds expansion Google rolled out to all hotel advertisers globally in October 2024, which delivered 20 percent higher engagement for hotel advertising. Whether the DMA-driven display format would operate in parallel with or instead of standard advertising units remains unclear from the Reuters report.

The EU Court of Justice upheld a €2.4 billion fine against Google in September 2024 in the long-running Google Shopping case, confirming the European Commission's 2017 ruling that Google had abused its dominant position by favoring its own comparison shopping service. The vertical search case carries direct parallels - it too concerns whether Google systematically advantages its own travel and local services products over third-party alternatives. The difference is that the DMA now provides a forward-looking compliance framework with faster enforcement timelines than traditional antitrust proceedings.

The European Commission has yet to formally respond to Google's most recent proposals. Whether the company's planned test satisfies regulators will depend on the technical specifications of the implementation - particularly the default display logic, the ranking methodology applied to vertical search engines, and whether Google's own hotel and flight products receive comparable or lesser prominence than rivals within the same result set. Those details remain undisclosed.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Alphabet's Google, the European Commission, vertical search services covering hotels, airlines and restaurants, and European comparison sites including a coalition of more than 20 price comparison websites.

What: Google is preparing to test modifications to its European search results that would show vertical search services - such as hotel booking aggregators, flight comparison platforms, and restaurant finders - by default, alongside or instead of Google's own product listings. The previously undisclosed changes would initially focus on lodging searches before expanding to flights and other categories. Top-ranked vertical search engines would appear by default, with real-time feed-based services from hotels, airlines, restaurants, and transport providers sitting either above or below that list.

When: According to Reuters, the announcement was made on February 25, 2026, with the changes expected to roll out soon across Europe. The regulatory backdrop spans from March 2024 when DMA obligations became binding, to March 2025 when the Commission formally charged Google with DMA breaches.

Where: The changes apply across European markets where the Digital Markets Act is in force. Initial deployment will focus on lodging searches, with a broader European rollout to follow.

Why: Google is seeking to avoid a fine under the Digital Markets Act, which allows penalties of up to 10 percent of global annual revenue for non-compliance. The company has accumulated 9.71 billion euros in European antitrust fines since 2017. The planned test is the latest in a series of proposals aimed at satisfying EU regulators who have charged Google with favouring its own services in searches for hotels, flights, and restaurants - charges Google has disputed while simultaneously claiming its compliance efforts have degraded services and cost European businesses an estimated €114 billion.

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