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Google will accept a decline in the quality of its search engine in Europe to avoid fines amounting to billions from the European Commission. The tech giant has previously been accused of unfairly promoting its own services when generating search results.
Google representatives have announced their willingness to modify how its search engine operates within the European Union to avoid sanctions totaling 890 million euros (about $1 billion), imposed by European regulators earlier this summer. Specifically, a fine of 460 million euros (about $534 million) was imposed due to allegations that the company abused its monopoly position in the search engine market to favor its own products.
This ban marks another stage in the standoff between European government agencies and American tech companies over violations of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The main requirement of this regulation is to prohibit large companies from giving their own services a more favorable ranking compared to third-party alternatives.
The U.S. company first presented a plan to adapt its services to comply with antitrust laws in March 2024. However, by the end of that same month, the European Commission had already launched an investigation into Google, as well as Apple and Meta, for continuing to give preferential treatment to their own tools – such as displaying the Google Flights block above competitors’ results in travel-related searches. A year later, the regulator imposed the first fines on the company for its self-serving practices. In the fall of 2025, reports emerged that the corporation had proposed an updated search results design to comply with European regulations.
Now, according to Reuters, Google’s revamped search results will feature a single specialized search result at the top of the page, followed by two others with fewer details. Below that will be a carousel of hotels, airlines, and restaurants, but without key metrics such as current prices. These specialized services include comparison platforms and aggregators such as Expedia or Hotels.com, so European users will soon see them prioritized over local business websites. At the same time, Reuters emphasizes that the ranking will continue to be determined by the company’s algorithm, meaning the company retains significant control over the page’s final appearance. The European Commission has given the company 60 days to comply with the requirements, but the developers have not yet specified an exact launch date for these changes in Europe.
Google’s management has called compliance with the DMA’s requirements a necessary step that will lead to a decline in search quality. In a comment to Reuters, company representatives noted that such changes will represent the biggest deterioration in service in the search engine’s history. Nick Fox, Senior Vice President of Knowledge and Information, emphasized in his statement that these changes reduce the user experience for Europeans, favor online intermediaries at the expense of local businesses, and remove useful features that people have come to rely on. Reuters also noted that previous changes made to comply with the DMA have already led to a 30% reduction in free direct booking traffic for European businesses, and the new updates will trigger another decline.
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