What you need to know
- European Commission’s preliminary findings show that Google fails to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) on two of its major products.
- Google Search page and Google Play Store seem to be favoring the tech giant’s products above all the other competitors in the market.
- Google responds to this by stating that, the DMA “will hurt European businesses and consumers, hinder innovation, weaken security, and degrade product quality.”
Earlier today (Mar. 19), the EU Commission published its preliminary findings stating that two of Google’s most used products are in breach of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The DMA is a legislation brought about by the European Union to regulate big tech companies to make sure they’re playing fair and following practices that don’t favor their products over other big players on the market— leveling the playing field for other tech companies.
This Act applies to large tech giants such as Alphabet(Google’s parent company), Apple, and Microsoft among others. And Google has been dealing with the heat of the EU, since March 2024.
The report suggests that Google Search, “self preferences” its products over others i.e., when a user searches for anything related to shopping, hotel booking, transport, or financial and sports results, the report claims that Google shows its products at the top of the results page, rather than similar services offered by third parties— making users gravitate to its websites more often. More specifically “Alphabet gives its services more prominent treatment compared to others,” the report stated.
Secondly, the EU Commission states that Under the DMA, app developers that showcase and distribute their apps via the Google Play Store should be allowed to steer customers to cheaper options other than the ones Google controls.
“Whilst Alphabet can receive a fee for facilitating the initial acquisition of a new customer by an app developer via Google Play, the fees charged by Alphabet go beyond what is justified.”
“Alphabet charges developers a high fee over an unduly long period of time for every purchase of digital goods and services,” the report claimed.
Google’s response to EU commission’s report
While this isn’t the EU’s final decision, these preliminary findings were enough to make Google look like they’re in breach of the DMA. Responding to this report, Google stated in a blog post earlier today that, while the DMA aims at being fair to all players in the market, these rules are “having the opposite effect by hurting European businesses and consumers.”
Furthermore, Google says that if the DMA is enacted, on Google Search, those rules will make it harder for people to find the exact business/website they’re looking for— in turn impacting European businesses that rely on this traffic.
“Users are so frustrated that many are resorting to clunky workarounds to get to the companies and information that they want,” Google added.
Let’s not forget that Google did make some changes to Google Search to comply with the DMA back in November 2024, it tested removing advanced hotel-booking features entirely in Germany, Belgium, and Estonia for a limited time.
“Those changes, and many more that we have had to make in Europe, are already causing European businesses to lose up to 30% of traffic,” the tech giant explained.
Speaking about the accusations on Google Play Store, the company says that the Commission’s findings on Android and Play “create a false choice between openness and security. They risk exposing people in Europe to more malware and fraud.” Since Google allows developers to distribute their apps freely onto the app store, this also creates an open playground for scammers to seep in, without any control from the company.
Now the only option that Google has is to create a more closed model, much like Apple where the company reviews all the apps that go through the store, without leaving it to the developers.
That said, since this isn’t the final result of the investigation, the tech giant still has time to discuss with the EU Commission and look at options that will favor both parties.
“We will keep engaging with the Commission and comply with its rules. But today’s findings now increase the risk of an even worse experience for Europeans,” Google added.