The European Union has fined Google €2.95 billion ($3.45 billion) for antitrust violations in its advertising technology business, escalating long-standing tensions between Brussels and Silicon Valley’s most powerful firms.
The European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, said Google distorted competition in the digital advertising supply chain by unfairly favoring its own display ad services over rival providers, harming advertisers, publishers, and ultimately consumers. Regulators ordered the company to end what they called “self-preferencing practices” and take steps to address “inherent conflicts of interest along the adtech supply chain.”
“Today’s decision shows that Google abused its dominant position in adtech harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers. This behavior is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” said EU competition chief Teresa Ribera in a statement on Friday. “Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies.”
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The decision follows a probe first launched in 2021, which examined whether Google had tilted the playing field in favor of its own ad products in Europe’s multi-billion-euro online advertising market. The fine had been expected earlier this week but was delayed, Reuters reported, as EU regulators held back while awaiting progress on a U.S.-EU trade deal involving tariffs on European cars.
Google Pushes Back
Google’s global head of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, rejected the Commission’s findings and confirmed the company will appeal.
“It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money,” Mulholland said in an emailed statement to The Verge. “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.”
Transatlantic Tensions Rise
The ruling added to Washington’s ire over growing antitrust fines against American tech companies, which President Donald Trump has blasted as part of what he described as Europe’s systematic campaign against U.S. tech companies and threatened to launch a Section 301 trade investigation in retaliation.
Trump referenced Apple, which has faced multiple disputes with the EU over taxation and competition issues. He pointed to a 2024 court ruling that ordered Apple to pay more than $14 billion in back taxes, bringing total penalties and disputes to about $17 billion by his estimate.
“Apple should get their money back!” he declared.
“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these Taxpaying American Companies,” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday.
The president said Europe was “effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American Investments and Jobs,” adding: “This is on top of the many other Fines and Taxes that have been issued against Google and other American Tech Companies, in particular. Very unfair, and the American Taxpayer will not stand for it!”
The fine is among the largest antitrust penalties the EU has levied against Google, adding to a string of cases over the past decade involving its search, shopping, and Android businesses.
For Washington, the case is less about market competition and more about economic sovereignty. Trump’s threat to launch a Section 301 investigation — the same legal tool once used to confront China on trade — signals that U.S.-EU disputes over digital taxation and regulation may escalate into a wider trade confrontation.
The clash underscores the EU’s determination to curb the power of Big Tech through antitrust enforcement and new laws such as the Digital Markets Act, even as U.S. policymakers increasingly see those fines as discriminatory against American companies.
Google’s appeal means the legal battle could drag on for years, but the Commission’s move signals that Brussels is intent on forcing structural changes in the adtech industry. Meanwhile, Trump’s reaction raises the possibility that what began as a competition ruling in Europe could soon spill over into a transatlantic trade fight.