Google adds price comparison feature to meet EU antitrust rules

Google, owned by Alphabet, plans to introduce a price-comparison feature at the top of its search results to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).

The feature will show a box with ranked options from third-party price-comparison sites.

Users can click through to platforms like Expedia or Booking.com, or access individual hotel or airline pages.

Google’s own services will appear in a dropdown menu alongside other providers.

This move comes after a warning from the European Commission in March, stating Google could face fines for favoring its own services like Google Flights.

The DMA prohibits tech giants from prioritizing their own services. Violations may result in fines of up to 10% of global revenue, or 20% for repeat offenses.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Google’s proposal follows years of EU fines for self-preferencing

The new price-comparison box is the latest chapter in a long regulatory struggle between Google and the EU that began nearly a decade ago.

In 2017, the European Commission imposed a record €2.42 billion fine on Google for favoring its own comparison shopping service in search results, following a seven-year investigation1.

This was followed by a €4.34 billion fine in 2018 for practices related to Android that strengthened Google’s search dominance2, and a €1.49 billion penalty in 2019 for anti-competitive restrictions in online advertising3.

Google’s pattern has typically involved contesting these fines through appeals while making minimal changes to comply, as demonstrated by its previous attempts to satisfy regulators with limited modifications to EU search results4.

The current proposal comes after Google lost its court bid last year over the original shopping fine, showing how regulatory pressure is finally forcing more substantial changes to its core search product.

2️⃣ The DMA shifts EU enforcement from reactive to proactive regulation

Google’s latest compliance effort highlights a fundamental shift in how the EU regulates big tech companies.