EU’s €890M DMA Fine on Google Tests Law’s Limits Amid US Trade Backlash

For legal and regulatory professionals, the Google DMA fines are not merely another antitrust headline—they represent a stress test of a new ex‑ante regime that bypasses traditional market definition. The dual violations showcase how the DMA’s per‑se prohibitions on self‑preferencing and anti‑steering can be enforced simultaneously, and how the Commission is calibrating fines to signal resolve while staying well below the statutory 10% cap. With the U.S. openly questioning the legitimacy of the DMA, the case will shape international comity, legal challenges, and the design of similar laws in jurisdictions from the UK to India.

The European Union imposed its largest-ever cumulative penalty under the Digital Markets Act on Thursday, fining Alphabet Inc.’s Google a total of €890 million (approximately $1 billion) across two separate violations. A €460 million fine targets Google’s self-preferencing conduct, where the company systematically elevated its own vertical search services—specifically Google Flights and Google Hotels—above rival offerings in general search results. A second, €430 million fine addresses anti-steering practices: Google prevented app developers from informing users about alternative, often cheaper purchase options outside the Google Play Store during the period from March 2024 to December 2025. Announced by European Commission tech chief Henna Virkkunen, the decision underscores Brussels’ resolve to enforce the DMA’s contestability and fairness mandates, even as the geopolitical backdrop grows more confrontational.

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The European Union imposed its largest-ever cumulative penalty under the Digital Markets Act on Thursday, fining Alphabet Inc.’s Google a total of €890 million (approximately $1 billion) across two separate violations.

The timing is particularly delicate. The fines land just days before the first anniversary of a tariff truce between Washington and Brussels, a deal that had temporarily cooled trade hostilities. President Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly accused the EU of weaponizing regulation against American tech champions and has openly threatened retaliatory tariffs. By dropping a near-billion-euro enforcement package at this juncture, the Commission is sending an unambiguous signal that competition policy will not be held hostage to trade diplomacy. EU officials are quick to point out that the fines amount to a mere 0.22% of Google’s global turnover—well below the DMA’s 10% ceiling—suggesting that the objective is compliance, not punishment. Yet that figure also reveals the vast economic disparity: Google earns hundreds of billions annually, and a fine of this magnitude is a negligible line item. For critics, this raises questions about whether the DMA can truly deter mega-platforms whose revenue streams dwarf any plausible financial penalty short of structural remedies.

The DMA, in force since 2024, is the centerpiece of Europe’s digital rulebook. It designates large online platforms as “gatekeepers” and imposes ex-ante obligations on them, including bans on self-preferencing and anti-steering. Last year, the EU fined Meta €200 million and Apple €500 million under the same rules—decisions that have already sparked multiple legal challenges and transatlantic friction. Google’s case escalates the financial stakes and expands the precedential scope, covering two distinct gatekeeper obligations simultaneously. The self-preferencing violation revives echoes of the 2017 Google Shopping case, in which the EU imposed a €2.4 billion antitrust fine that survived court appeals. Here, however, the DMA allows the Commission to move faster and without the need to define a relevant antitrust market—a significant procedural advantage.

The anti-steering clause, meanwhile, strikes at the heart of app-store economics. E.U. investigators determined that Google’s contractual restrictions on developers, in effect through the end of 2025, stifled price competition and innovation, harming both consumers and developers. Google’s defense—that its policies protect user safety on Android—mirrors arguments Apple has used in its own app-store disputes. Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, framed the ruling as harmful to product quality: “Regulation should improve products, not make them worse.” This defense may resonate in Washington, where lawmakers from both parties have criticized the DMA as extraterritorial overreach, but it is unlikely to sway European regulators who view such safety claims as pretextual.