The European Commission states that Alphabet, Google’s guardian firm, violated the regulation on digital markets. The particular accusation is that Google is self -produced for analysis and the Play Store.
The DMA applies to “gatekeeper” organizations which have an awesome financial influence within the EU (not less than 7.5 billion euros of annual income within the EU per 12 months for the final three tax years) and have greater than 45 million month-to-month lively customers within the EU, or greater than 10,000 customers of lively corporations per 12 months for not less than three tax years.
See: The protection teams criticize the European Commission for the weak regulation of Apple, Google
Google is underneath management for analysis practices and play
The European Commission has printed preliminary outcomes on Alphabet and the way it might stop competitors. The issues concern two issues: autopriculture within the seek for Google and “steering guidelines” in Google Play; These issues have been examined as a part of an open -compliance investigation in March 2024.
The DMA prohibits self -package, which is when a dominant platform favors its services or products in comparison with these of the rivals. The Commission believes that the way in which Alphabet presents Google’s search outcomes might information prospects to Google Services, corresponding to purchases, flights or lodges.
Secondly, the Commission claims that the Play Store, the Google cellular app market, prevents the app builders from directing shoppers to different buy channels, corresponding to its web site or third -party apps. This limits their skill to supply higher presents outdoors the Google platform.
Google has made a collection of adjustments within the final 12 months to evolve to the DMA, corresponding to Temporary removal some search widgets And renew the structure of the analysis outcomes, however the fee has established that these steps are inadequate.
What are the doable penalties of the EU sentence?
Note that These results they’re preliminaries and the alphabet has the chance to reply in writing; However, if they’re confirmed, the Commission will undertake a call of non -compliance as has achieved now with Apple, which might result in fines or different penalties.
Fines for non -compliance with DMA will be as much as 10% of the corporate’s complete world turnover, which went as much as 20% within the occasion of repeated violation.
In a weblog publish, The Senior Director of Google for competition Oliver Bethell He stated that the adjustments that the Commission desires “will harm European corporations and shoppers, hinder innovation, weaken security and degrade the standard of the product”.
