EU fines Google €890 million for competition violations
The European Commission has fined Google €890 million for favoring its own search engine and Play Store, harming competitors.
The European Union has imposed a €890 million ($1.015 billion) fine on US tech giant Google for violating EU digital regulations. The European Commission found that Google unfairly prioritized its search engine and Play app store, harming competition.
"We found that Google harms businesses offering similar services, such as shopping or sports, by not granting them the same level of prominence on Google Search," said European Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen, who also serves as digital technologies commissioner. "We also found that Google has restricted app developers from offering cheaper offers to customers in the Google Play app store."
The commission stressed that Google could face further fines if it does not comply. Previously, in 2018, the EU fined Google €4.3 billion for abusing Android's market dominance by requiring phone makers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome. Google lost its appeal against that fine in February.
