The European Commission’s latest belated attempt of regulating Big Tech came in the form of a €890m fine for breaches of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) on Thursday (23 July), which commentators immediately deemed “the bare minimum.”
“It’s taken the commission over two years to get to this stage of the investigations, which is simply not good enough. It’s time to move quickly to force Google to end its anti-competitive practices,” said director of Open Markets Institute Europe Max von Thun.
The commission found that Google’s search monopoly prioritises the company’s services such as Google Flights or Google Store above other results, resulting in a €460m penalty.
Google was also found to excessively charge businesses directing consumers to alternative, often cheaper, purchase channels on Google Play, and hit for another €430m. The two fines combine to a total of €890m.
“The aim of this intervention is to guarantee that third-party services who have equally good offers than Google, who are not worse in terms of content, in terms of substance, get a fair chance to be found by users,” a commission official told the press on Thursday.
