Google has sent Brussels a new plan for changes to its search results in order to close an antitrust investigation under the Digital Markets Act, which can impose fines of up to 10% of a company’s global revenue.
Google has sent Brussels a new plan for changes to its search results in order to close an antitrust investigation under the Digital Markets Act, which can impose fines of up to 10% of a company’s global revenue.
According to Reuters, the European Commission is investigating whether Google is giving preferential treatment to its own services such as Shopping, Hotels and Flights. In response, the company offered a simple solution for the user: separate card blocks for third-party vertical services (hotel, ticket, restaurant, taxi, etc. search engines), which will look and work the same as Google’s branded modules in the output — with the same fields, buttons, filters and quick transitions. They promise to determine which block to show according to «objective and non-discriminatory criteria», without transferring competitors' data to other players.
The Digital Markets Act allows for fines of up to 10% of a company’s annual global turnover (and up to 20% for repeat offenders). To put that into perspective, Alphabet’s revenue in 2024 was estimated at around $350 billion, so the maximum initial fine is $35 billion.
How the user experience will change. When you search, for example, for «hotels Rome» or «cheap flights Paris», cards from third-party search engines (Expedia, Booking, Skyscanner, etc.) will appear separately from Google’s branded blocks in the same format as Google’s modules: with price, rating, «check on site» and quick filters. Direct suppliers (airlines, hotels, restaurants, carriers) will have their own block — above or below the block with aggregators, depending on the user’s request.
The company says it wants a «balanced solution,» but warns that sweeping changes could overemphasize intermediaries and hurt businesses that sell directly (hotels, airlines, restaurants). At the same time, a «level playing field» is a key requirement in Brussels for monopolists like Google. A final decision on the fine is expected in the coming months.
This is not the first major pressure on Google in the EU: in September 2025, the Commission already imposed a €2.95 billion fine on Google in a separate adtech case (old competition rules, not the DMA). The new investigation is one of the first tests of the application of the DMA to «general search.» If the Commission finds the concessions insufficient, the precedent will set the bar for penalties for all major platforms in Europe and what exactly the search for goods, travel and services in the region will look like going forward.
Earlier, dev.ua wrote about how the European Commission announced a fine of 2.95 billion euros (almost $3.5 billion) on Google for violating EU antitrust rules. The regulator concluded that the company systematically favored its own services in advertising tools.
