The European Union has fined Google $3.5 billion, 2.95 billion euro, for breaking its competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services. Part of this ruling also says Google is required to divest part of its ad-tech business.
This comes from the EU's 2023 ruling where the EU said back then that the only way to solve the anti-competitive issue is to break up parts of Google.
The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, also ordered the U.S. tech giant to end its “self-preferencing practices” and take steps to stop “conflicts of interest” along the advertising technology supply chain, AP reported.
In 2018, Google was fined $5 billion over antitrust and competitive laws around Android and in 2016 EU went after Google over AdSense and AdWords (Google Ads). This is the EU's fourth such antitrust penalty against Google.
Of course this comes after the weak remedy ruling in the US case where Google was ruled a monopoly.
“It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement.
Google said the decision was “wrong” and that it would appeal. Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s global head of regulatory affairs, called the fine “unjustified” and said “it requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money”.
Google now has 60 days to inform the commission about how it intends to comply. If it does not, Brussels warned that the alleged offences can only be resolved by forcing the company to sell off parts of its business. "Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies,” said EU competition chief Teresa Ribera.
So this does seem like the previous 2018 ruling is a bit softer?
More coverage of this on Techmeme.
Can the EU do what the US could not?
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) September 5, 2025 at 11:43 AM
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