The European Union plans to impose a fine of several hundred million euros on Google in a major antitrust investigation.
What can Google be fined for?
The decision on the fine is already in the final stages and could be announced before the start of the summer holidays in the European institutions, writes CNBC.
The investigation against Alphabet, which includes Google, officially began in March 2025. European regulators suspect the company of:
- gives preference to its own services in search results;
- weakens competitors;
- violates the rules of fair competition.
The case is being considered under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which the EU created to limit the influence of the world's largest technology companies.
European Commission spokesman Thomas Rainier said Brussels was primarily interested in the company complying with the rules, not just paying fines. However, he stressed that the EU would not hesitate to resort to tough sanctions if a compromise was not reached. By the way, this fine would be the largest financial penalty the EU has ever imposed for a breach of the Digital Markets Act.
Google, on the other hand, sharply criticized the requirements of European law.
The company claims that the changes that have already had to be made to the search engine due to the DMA have allegedly significantly worsened the quality of service for users in Europe.
The changes we have already made to Search under the DMA are the biggest degradation of product quality in history, creating a second-rate experience for Europeans for the benefit of a few selfish complainers,
– said a company representative.
Google was previously fined $1 quintillion: what is known?
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In February 2026, it became known that the Supreme Court of Russia had fined Google 91.5 quintillion rubles, which is a million times more than the world's GDP.
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The story of the giant fine began in 2020, when the propaganda channels “Tsargorod” and RIA FAN filed lawsuits against Google LLC, Google Ireland, and the Russian LLC “Google” demanding that they restore their blocked YouTube accounts. The court upheld the demands, but the company did not comply with the decision. For each day of non-compliance, a fine was imposed, starting at 100 thousand rubles and doubling every week.
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In 2022, Google suspended operations in the country, and in October 2023, it was declared bankrupt. Later, the court limited the penalty to the date of the bankruptcy declaration – the total amount was 91.5 quintillion rubles. Until then, it was 1.81 duodecillion rubles (one with 39 zeros).