European Commission fines Google €890M under the Digital Markets Act

The European Commission has fined Google a combined €890 million for violating the Digital Markets Act, marking the first time the company has been penalized under the bloc’s landmark tech competition law. The ruling, issued on July 23, 2026, covers two distinct complaints. The breakdown is fairly surgical. Google owes €460 million for steering users toward its own services inside Google Search, a practice regulators call self-preferencing. The remaining €430 million covers restrictions Google placed on app developers, specifically rules that prevented those developers from pointing users toward cheaper payment options outside the Google Play ecosystem. What Google actually did wrong The Play Store violation is more immediately relevant to fintech and crypto. Under the old rules, if a developer built a trading app and wanted to tell users they could sign up for cheaper fees on the web, Google could block that communication. The DMA’s anti-steering provisions were designed specifically to end that kind of gatekeeping. Google now has 60 days to comply with the ruling. If it fails to meet those conditions, the Commission can levy additional penalty payments of up to 5% of its average ...