Google hit with $1 billion EU fine for breach of the digital act

[goodoldweb]

"BRUSSELS, July 23 (Reuters) - Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), was fined a total of €890 million ($1 billion) on Thursday for ​flouting European Union rules aimed at reining in the power of Big Tech, the European Commission said.
However, the tech giant is likely ‌to avoid fresh fines as EU regulators lauded good progress in its efforts to comply with the landmark legislation."

[reuters.com...]

Chickens have started coming back home to roost...

[RedBar]

Does anyone actually believe this will make any difference whatsoever?

All this does is get legal heads together from both sides to try and agree upon what is and is not acceptable for the next few (say 10) years when the next bunch of legal spongers and globalists go through precisely the same again with whatever the "new" market situation is. It's a continuation of the "old" system but ostensbly pretending to be under "new" rules.

And at the end of the day WE consumers and non-Globalist businesses all end up paying for it since that's the way it's rigged. This is precisely what the EU and its legal friends have been developing / organising / arranging for more than 30 years, 1st November 1993 to be precise.

[Whitey]

Google is always ten steps ahead of the law and authorities since fast moving tech and market dominance rules, me thinks.

However I believe this one is more significant than previous antitrust fines because it’s tied to the Digital Markets Act, which is designed to change behaviour rather than simply punish it. If Google has to alter how it presents its own travel products versus competitors, that could create real opportunities for specialist travel sites.

The bigger question is whether Google shifts monetisation into AI search instead. If it can’t favour its own travel modules as before, I’d expect it to double down on sponsored AI responses and new advertising formats. So the battleground may move from traditional SERPs to AI interfaces rather than disappearing altogether.

Either way, it reinforces the value of building genuine authority and original content instead of relying on Google’s own verticals for visibility.

[RedBar]

@Whitey
Whilst your overview is correct you forget the corruption and manipulation within the EU together with all the inherent business interests that rely upon upon its interdependency. Without getting into a political discussion, the EU does not like small businesses, they are too much like hard work and difficult to regulate simply because they are too nimble however a large multinational employing hundreds of thousands or even millions is far easier with which to contend. I have been dealing with this institution since the 70s and from the 90s onwards it became much more involved and now we have career-driven, very highly-paid "legals" who know nothing else.

Whatever the EU tries to do will not affect Google if they make any type of search less convenient for the user. New ideas will develop rapidly and the users will go there purely for convenience sake. Users simply want stuff to work and unless the EU locks-down search per se plus stifling all interactions, all this is merely window-dressing for the public and pocket-lining for the ensconced cognoscenti.

[Whitey]

I think both points can be true.

The DMA probably won’t reduce Google’s market share overnight, but it does change the constraints under which Google can operate in Europe. That’s different from the old antitrust model where fines often became just another cost of doing business.

From a webmaster’s perspective, I’m less interested in the politics than the practical outcomes. If Google is forced to separate its own commercial interests from ranking and presentation, even marginally, it creates opportunities for independent publishers. The challenge is that Google is unlikely to stand still. AI search, AI Overviews and conversational interfaces are the obvious places to innovate, so the competitive landscape simply shifts.

For site owners, the lesson hasn’t really changed: diversify traffic sources, build a recognised brand, publish information that AI systems want to cite, and don’t build a business that depends on one SERP feature remaining unchanged. That’s probably the only constant.

[lucy24]

<tangent>
zero-width space and zero-width non-joiner, if anyone wondered
</tangent>

[goodoldweb]

Whichever way you look at it, a $1 billion hit is a significant start. It's already putting pressure on Google's share price and there's more to come.

Sundar Pichai has really crossed the line in recent years. Now he's leading Google down a path that's eroding the company's value at an accelerating pace.