EU Set to Rule Google Broke DMA Rules by Favouring Its Own Search Results

The European Commission is expected to rule as early as next week that Google illegally favoured its own shopping, travel, and other specialised services in its search results, in violation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). According to the Financial Times, citing people familiar with the matter and internal Commission documents, Google faces fines of hundreds of millions of euros across two DMA decisions. Businesses competing for organic traffic in commercial search categories could see real changes to how Google displays results if an order is enforced.

What happened

Detail	Fact
Expected ruling	Google violated the Digital Markets Act by self-preferencing its own vertical services
Timing	Decision expected next week (reported by the Financial Times)
Fines	Hundreds of millions of euros across two DMA decisions
Compliance window	60 days before daily penalties can kick in
Data access question	Whether Google must share ranking, query, click, and view data with rival search engines
AI access question	Whether third-party AI providers must get the same search features available to Gemini

The case centres on how Google places its own vertical services (shopping comparisons, travel, local listings, and similar specialised results) inside its search pages versus how it treats competing services in the same categories. Google controls some of the most commercially valuable positions on the internet, and rivals in comparison and travel have long argued those positions are stacked against them.

The Financial Times reported the findings based on people familiar with the matter and internal Commission documents, though the Commission has not yet published anything officially.

What could actually change in search results?

If the Commission orders Google to alter how it displays its own properties, the most immediate effect would be on the visibility of comparison sites, travel booking platforms, and shopping aggregators. These are businesses that currently compete for the same high-intent queries where Google’s own services appear prominently, often above organic results.

An enforcement order would not automatically redistribute that traffic, but it could require Google to treat third-party services more equally in placement or labelling. That is a meaningful shift for any business whose organic search strategy depends on ranking in commercial categories.

The data access and AI angles

Two related questions sit alongside the self-preferencing ruling. First, the Commission is weighing whether Google must provide rival search engines with access to its search data, specifically ranking signals, user queries, clicks, and page view data. Google’s position is that handing over this data would harm user privacy and goes beyond what the DMA authorises.

Second, the Commission is considering whether third-party AI providers should receive the same access to Google’s search features that Google’s own Gemini model currently enjoys. This matters because search-grounded AI answers are becoming a core product for every major AI lab, and unequal access to the underlying search layer could entrench Google’s advantage in that market too. Our earlier coverage of publishers suing Google over Gemini training data shows how contested the boundaries of Google’s AI integrations have become.

Why it matters for your business

For most small and mid-size businesses, the direct effect of this ruling will not be immediate. Regulatory decisions of this size typically take months to translate into product changes, and Google will almost certainly appeal.

That said, there are a few things worth watching:

• Comparison and aggregator sites in shopping, insurance, travel, and finance could gain organic visibility if placement rules tighten.
• If Google is forced to share search data more broadly, third-party SEO and analytics tools could become more accurate and more competitive with Google’s own products.
• The AI access question is the longest-term one. If rival AI tools get equal access to Google’s search features, the competitive landscape for AI-assisted search shifts noticeably.

Our take

The DMA was designed precisely for situations like this. Google has had a structural advantage in commercial search for years, and this ruling, if it lands as reported, is a direct attempt to claw some of that back on behalf of competitors. Whether it works in practice is a separate question. The 60-day compliance window with daily fines attached is a more aggressive mechanism than past EU antitrust orders, but Google has the resources and legal team to stretch that timeline considerably.

The data-sharing piece is the one we find most interesting. If rivals gain access to ranking, query, click, and view data at scale, that could meaningfully improve the quality of third-party search intelligence tools. For businesses that rely on that data to make decisions, the downstream effect could be positive even if the headline ruling feels distant.

If you are currently running paid search alongside organic and want to understand how regulatory changes could affect your channel mix, it is worth talking through your exposure with someone who tracks both sides. Our performance advertising work and SEO practice often intersect exactly here.

Source: Search Engine Land