Google hit with $3.5 billion fine from European Union in ad-tech
antitrust case
[September 06, 2025] By
KELVIN CHAN
European Union regulators on Friday hit Google with a 2.95 billion euro
($3.5 billion) fine for breaching the bloc’s competition rules by
favoring its own digital advertising services, but the bloc's latest
move to crack down on Big Tech companies drew outrage from President
Donald Trump.
The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch and top
antitrust enforcer, also ordered the U.S. tech giant to end its
“self-preferencing practices” and stop “conflicts of interest” along the
advertising technology supply chain.
It’s the fourth time Brussels has sanctioned Google with a
multibillion-euro fine in an antitrust case, in a wider battle with
regulators that dates back to 2017.
Trump, whose administration has lashed out at the bloc over digital
regulations and taxes imposed on U.S. tech companies, said the EU fine
was “effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American
Investments and Jobs."
“Very unfair, and the American Taxpayer will not stand for it!" he said
in a post on Truth Social. "As I have said before, my Administration
will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand.”
The Commission said its investigation found that Google “abused its
power” by favoring its own online display advertising technology
services to the detriment of competitors, online advertisers and
publishers.
The investigation focused on Google's AdX exchange and DFP ad platform,
tools that bring together advertisers, who want to market their
products, with online publishers, who want to sell commercial space on
their websites.
The company has 60 days to come up with proposed remedies.
If it doesn't come up with “a viable plan, the Commission will not
hesitate to impose an appropriate remedy," Teresa Ribera, the European
Commission’s executive vice-president overseeing competition affairs,
said in a statement posted online.
“At this stage, it appears that the only way for Google to end its
conflict of interest effectively is with a structural remedy, such as
selling some part of its Adtech business," Ribera said.
But the Commission said it first wants to "hear and assess" the
company's proposal.
Google said the decision was “wrong” and vowed to 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,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s global head of regulatory
affairs, said in a statement.
Ribera said that Google's “illegal practices” resulted in advertisers
facing higher marketing costs that they likely passed on to European
consumers through higher prices for products and services. At the same
time, it also meant lower revenue for publishers, like news sites, which
might have resulted in lower quality and higher subscription costs for
consumers.
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 The decision was overdue, coming
more than two years after the European Commission announced
antitrust charges against Google. It also comes amid renewed
tensions between Brussels and Washington over trade, tariffs and
technology regulation.
The commission had said in 2023 that the only way
to satisfy antitrust concerns about Google’s lucrative digital ad
business was to sell off parts of its business.
Top EU officials have previously said that they were seeking a
forced sale because past cases that ended with fines and
requirements for Google to stop anti-competitive practices have not
worked, allowing the company to continue its behavior in a different
form.
The commission’s penalty follows a formal investigation into online
display advertising that it opened in June 2021, which found that
since 2014, Google “abused” its dominant position in the
ad-technology ecosystem.
Online display ads are banners and text that appear on websites and
are personalized based on an internet user’s browsing history.
Mulholland said, “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing
services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives
to our services than ever before.”
Cori Crider, a senior fellow at the Future of Technology Institute
think tank, said, “Europe made an important stand for the rule of
law today by pressing ahead with this first-step fine in the face of
Trump and Big Tech’s bullying."
But “only a break-up will fix Google’s monopoly,” said Crider, who's
also an honorary professor at UCL Laws. “If Europe’s enforcers
flinch on a break-up in the end, Google will rightly chalk a fine up
as a win.”
While the EU's fine is a huge sum, it's pocket change for Google,
which earned $28.2 billion in revenue in the second quarter.
Google is also facing pressure on the other side of the Atlantic
over its ad-tech business.
In a separate U.S. case, the Justice Department asked a federal
judge in May to force the company to sell off its AdX and DFP
services. The case is scheduled to move to the penalty phase, known
as remedy hearings, later this month.
The Commission said its finding that Google abused its dominance
will be important for the remedy hearings because it's the same
conduct that the Justice Department was investigating.
Authorities in Canada and Britain have also targeted Google over its
conduct in the digital ad industry.
Google has already avoided a breakup earlier this week in the U.S.,
where it's under fire on a separate front after a U.S. federal judge
found it had an illegal monopoly in online search. On Tuesday, the
judge ordered a shake-up of its search engine but rebuffed the
government's attempt to force a sale of its Chrome browser.
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