In a decision likely to intensify trans-Atlantic trade tensions, European Union regulators on Thursday hit Google with a $1 billion fine for illegally undercutting competition through its dominance as a search engine.
President Trump has previously threatened to retaliate against the European Union for what he views as the unfair targeting of American technology companies. The Google decision comes when he is weighing a new batch of tariffs on the European Union and other major trading partners.
In explaining Thursday’s fine of 890 million euros, regulators in Brussels said Google had used its position as the world’s largest search engine to unfairly boost its services in areas like shopping, travel, games and language translation. Google displayed its own services more prominently at the top of search results, while relegating competing services further down the page, according to regulators.
The European Commission, which conducted the investigation, also concluded that the tech giant used unfair restrictions on its Google Play app store that prevents app developers from communizing with users, or conducting transactions that could reduce the fees Google can collect.
The commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said that Google violated the Digital Markets Act, known as the D.M.A., a law passed in 2022 to stop the largest tech platforms from using their interlocking services to box in users and squeeze out rivals. Authorities have argued the biggest tech companies have become so dominant in areas like internet search, smartphones, e-commerce and social media that they serve as gatekeepers and determine the fate other businesses and can harm competition.
“The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine,” Teresa Ribera, the executive vice president of the European Commission overseeing competition policy, said in a statement on Thursday. “This is the promise of the D.M.A., protecting fairness, choice and innovation in digital markets for the benefit of all European citizens.”
Google has been a frequent target of European Union regulators over the past decade, having been fined more than 10 billion euros since 2017. Kent Walker, the company’s general counsel, said Thursday’s decision would require product design changes that will harm services for European users.
“This isn’t fair competition; it’s product degradation,” he said. “Regulation should improve products, not make them worse.”
The fine is small in comparison to Google’s overall business. On Wednesday, Google’s parent company Alphabet reported a quarterly profit of $112.1 billion, boosted by investments made in SpaceX and Anthropic.
Officials in Brussels will be waiting to see how Mr. Trump responds to Thursday’s decision. On Friday, the White House is expected to announce new tariffs on trade with the European Union and other countries.
A European Union official said that the fine was announced on Thursday because it was ready — without an eye on American trade developments — and that it would not come as a surprise to the Trump administration.
Since the earliest days returning to the White House, Mr. Trump has warned it would take “responsive actions” against regulation of American tech firms.
Last month, Mr. Trump threatened tariffs against countries for digital services taxes against American firms. In December, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said European companies including the Swedish music service Spotify, German industrial giant Siemens and French artificial intelligence developer Mistral could be targeted with fees or new restrictions.
American regulators have also targeted Google. Last year, the company was ordered to share search results and some data with rival companies as part of a landmark monopoly case that has some similarities to Thursday’s ruling in Brussels.
The European Union has long been the world’s most aggressive regulator of the tech industry in areas like data privacy, competition and harmful online content. Even as leaders in the region have taken steps to ease rules for artificial intelligence and other technology to boost economic growth, the bloc has pushed forward with investigations and penalties of some of the industry’s biggest companies.
Google was ordered this month by European Union regulators to lift restrictions that limit how rival A.I. companies can reach users of Android smartphones. Meta was told this month to make major design changes to Instagram and Facebook to make the services less addictive.
European regulators have also targeted Chinese companies. Alibaba’s AliExpress was fined the equivalent of $629 million last week for the sale of illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products on its platform. In February, TikTok, owned by ByteDance, was told to make changes to make its service less addictive.
The European Union is also considering a law to bar young people from social media.
