The European Union charged Google with breaking its antitrust laws as part of a wider European crackdown against Big Tech.
The move could put the EU on a collision course with President Donald Trump, who has warned against overregulation. The EU charges against Google could carry a fine, and Trump declared that he would levy tariffs against any country that fines U.S. companies.
The EU leveled two charges against Google. The first concerned Google Play, the app store, with regulators arguing that Alphabet (Google’s parent company) put barriers in place to prevent app developers from steering customers to other channels for better offers. The second charge said Google favored its own services, such as Google Shopping, Google Hotels, and Google Flights, over rivals, NDTV reported.
“The two preliminary findings we adopt today aim to ensure that Alphabet abides by EU rules when it comes to two services widely used by businesses and consumers across the EU, Google Search and Android phones,” EU Antitrust Chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.
Google’s alleged violations conflicted with the Digital Markets Act, a controversial law that could take up to 10% of Google’s global annual sales if it’s found guilty of violating it.
The European Commission described the Digital Markets Act as aiming to make “digital markets in the EU more contestable and fairer … It establishes new rules for 10 defined core platform services, such as search engines, online marketplaces, app stores, online advertising, and messaging, and gives new rights to European businesses and end-users.”
Companies that provide these services and have 75 billion euros in market capitalization and more than 45 million active monthly users are designated as “gatekeepers,” namely Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft.
No European-based companies are included on the list.
THE EUROPEAN UNION IS NOW THE WORLD’S MOST AGGRESSIVE REGULATOR OF DIGITAL MARKETS
The EU has fined Google over $8.7 billion in its history.
The collision course could be made all the worse by Trump’s warm relationship with Apple CEO Tim Cook, who was one of the few Big Tech heads Trump enjoyed a good relationship with during his first term. Their relationship has extended into Trump’s second term.
