The European Commission is preparing to fine Google a sum running into the high hundreds of millions of euros for breaching the Digital Markets Act, according to a Handelsblatt report on Monday, in what would be the largest penalty ever issued under the bloc’s new tech competition regime.
The Commission’s case rests on the long-running complaint that Google favours its own services, in particular shopping, travel and local search, when ranking results.
That investigation was formally opened in March 2024 as one of the first non-compliance probes under the DMA. Brussels concluded in early findings that Google’s ranking practices amounted to self-preferencing prohibited by Article 6 of the regulation.
A separate proceeding, opened in November 2025, deals with Google’s alleged demotion of news publishers in search results.
According to Handelsblatt, the decision in the self-preferencing case is nearing completion and is expected to be announced before the Commission’s August recess.
