Nearly ten years of legal battle, more than €10 billion in fines and now commercial pressure from Donald Trump. Google finds itself trapped in an unprecedented regulatory war with Brussels that has made its parent company Alphabet the most penalised firm for anticompetitive practices in the history of the European Union.

A decade of relentless sanctions

The history began in 2017 with a fine of close to €2.5 billion. Since then, the European Commission has imposed four additional sanctions, reaching a total of five penalties exceeding €10 billion. The latest, announced this week, was €890 million—seemingly modest compared to earlier ones, but it has unleashed an international political storm.

According to elpais.com, this cumulative figure makes it the company with the largest volume of unfair competition sanctions ever recorded in the EU. Only Apple has received a larger amount (€14 billion), but technically that was a refund of illegal taxes, not a penalty for anticompetitive conduct.

The cases that have led to punishment

Each sanction responds to different situations, but all revolve around abuse of dominant market position:

• Google Shopping (2017): Preferentially positioning its price comparison service in search results. Already confirmed by the EU Court of Justice.
• Bundling practices (€4.125 billion): Conditioning the pre-installation of Chrome and Google Search on Google Play Store licences in Android devices.
• Other subsequent breaches: Different forms of exploitation of its dominant position in the search engine.

Brussels' latest decision, besides the €890 million fine, includes two additional determinations that did not carry financial penalties, but do oblige Google to share search data with competitors—a substantial change to its business model.

Trump will not tolerate it

What appeared to be a technical matter of market regulation has become a geopolitical conflict. On Friday, Donald Trump announced new tariffs against the EU in retaliation for these decisions. The US administration believes Brussels' measures aim to harm its tech giants, not ensure fair competition.

EU Vice-President and Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera defended on Thursday that "our obligation is to comply with the law and ensure that the rules adopted by our sovereign institutions are fully applied and respected". A position that rejects any political motivation in the decisions.

Are the fines enough?

Experts question the effectiveness of these penalties. Pablo Ibáñez Colomo, Professor of Competition Law at the London School of Economics, stresses that infringements of abuse of dominant position do not function as a one-off fine. They require sustained control over time and agreements on how to apply corrective measures.

In fact, there are still complaints about how Google is implementing the measures imposed in 2017. The company itself has replied that this imposition "causes problems in the daily use of products" and represents "a deterioration driven by a small group of complainants".

Although the sums are spectacular, some analysts warn they are small compared to Google's annual profits. The real question is not the amount of money, but whether Brussels will finally succeed in changing the behaviour of a company that dominates 90% of the search market in Europe.