EU Fines Google €890 Million in First DMA Penalty, Citing Self-Preferencing of Hotel and Travel Results

Europe's regulators have finally acted on a complaint the travel industry has been making for a decade: that Google puts its own hotel and transport results above everyone else's. On July 23, the European Commission fined Google €890 million (about $1 billion) in the company's first penalty under the Digital Markets Act — and travel self-preferencing is at the center of it.

Two decisions, two fines

The Commission issued two non-compliance decisions against Google:

• €460 million for self-preferencing on Google Search. The Commission found that Google gives preferential treatment to its own services — including shopping, hotels, transport and sports results — over those of third parties. Google displays its own services more prominently, including at the top of the results page or with enhanced visuals and filters, while similar third-party services do not get the same prominence. Under the DMA, gatekeepers must apply transparent, fair and non-discriminatory conditions to ranking.

• €430 million for anti-steering on Google Play. App developers should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative and often cheaper offers outside Google Play and direct them there. The Commission found Google prevents developers from freely communicating such offers, and that the level and duration of Google's steering-related fees went beyond what the DMA permits.

The Commission ordered Google to bring both infringements to an end. Press reports indicate Google has 60 days to comply or face periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of its average daily worldwide turnover.

Why it matters for the OTA industry

The hotels and transport finding lands directly on Google's travel vertical. OTAs and metasearch players — Booking.com, Expedia, Tripadvisor, trivago and Kayak among them — have long argued that Google Hotels and Google Flights siphon traffic that would otherwise reach their own results, while they pay Google billions in advertising to appear alongside them.

If Google must redesign how travel modules appear in European search results within the compliance window, the distribution math for every OTA operating in the EU could shift — organic visibility that metasearch and OTA brands lost to Google's own boxes may be partially restored.

It is the first time Brussels has used the DMA against Google, and one of the largest penalties issued under the regulation to date. Google's response, and what a compliant European search page looks like, will be the things to watch over the next two months.