Google says European law harms products, consumers and businesses

Na reaction sent to Lusa, a Google spokesman said that the implementation of DMA is forcing the company to remove functionalities used by European consumers, such as the real-time presentation of prices and availability of hotels, flights and restaurants, and to change security mechanisms of the Google Play app store.

“ This implementation of DMA continues to harm everyday products. To meet the standards, we are being forced to remove the real-time research capabilities that Europeans love [...] and dismantle security protections on Google Play,” he said.

The company considered that the requirements imposed by the regulations do not promote fair competition and argued that they ultimately harm European consumers and businesses.

“ This is not fair competition, it is product degradation driven by a small group of complainants who aim only for their own benefit, with European businesses and consumers suffering the consequences. Regulations should improve products, not make them worse,” Google’s spokesman added.

The reaction arises after the European Commission has concluded that Google has failed to comply with the Digital Markets Act by giving preferential treatment to its own services in Google Research and by imposing restrictions on companies to forward consumers to alternative, often cheaper, purchasing channels in Google Play.

In this context, the Commission imposed a fine of EUR 460 million and EUR 430 million respectively on Google. 

Google will have 60 days to comply with the decisions, otherwise it risks periodic payments of up to 5% of its total global turnover.

The community executive points out that Google has already started testing changes to the way it presents its services in Google research and has introduced changes related to the routing rules, which in its view constitute “good progress towards compliance.”.

Google can now appeal to decisions.

The European Commission had already imposed large fines on the company for infringements of EU competition rules, for a total of more than EUR 11 billion, including the fine of EUR 2,95 billion imposed in 2025 for unfair practices in the digital advertising sector and the €4,125 billion fine for Android, confirmed by the EU Court of Justice this month.