European Commission set to charge Google for breaching DMA

Google is about to get charged by the European Commission for allegedly breaching the Digital Markets Act (DMA), even after proposed changes to its search results.

The Digital Markets Act or DMA is legislation that was drafted to protect European consumers from powerful tech companies that abuse their dominant market position, offering them greater choice and creating a level-playing field for newcomers.

The European Commission has been investigating Google for potential breaches of the DMA since March last year.

One probe focuses on Google probably favoring its vertical search engines such as Google Hotels, Google Flights, and Google Shopping over rivals, and whether it discriminates against third-party services on Google Search results.

In September 2024, Google lost this legal fight. The European Court of Justice imposed a fine of €2.42 billion for favoring its own online shopping service.

To prevent recurrence, Google proposed to make several modifications to Google Search to accommodate competing search engine services and websites that offer price comparisons, including the introduction of dedicated units and formats to boost the presence of comparison sites for categories such as flights, hotels and shopping.

Oliver Bethell, Director of Google’s Legal Department, argued that these changes would have a negative impact on small businesses to reach potential customers. To counter these effects, Google proposed even more changes, like expanding formatted units to either take users to comparison sites, or take them directly to supplier websites.

However, most of these changes have been dismissed by the European Commission as not DMA-compliant.

Three people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that the European Commission is therefore ready to charge Google for failing to address the EU antitrust regulator’s concerns and those of its rivals.

One of the sources told the press agency that EU antitrust regulators aren’t happy with Google’s threat to bring back blue links in search results if the company can’t resolve rivals’ demands.

The EU competition watchdog declined to comment. Google referred to a December blog post in which the company said it is working to find a balanced solution with the Commission.

The European Commission is currently fighting DMA-compliance battles with several tech companies, including Meta over its ‘pay or okay’ business model.

In addition, the Commission wants Apple to make changes to its operating systems in order to comply with the DMA’s interoperability obligations.

Lastly, the European Commission has sent out a request for information to YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok to learn more about the design and functioning of their engagement-based algorithms and recommendation systems.