Google’s latest quarterly filing shows something that would have sounded fake a few years ago. The company now tracks “European Commission fines” as a standard expense.
The total reached $10.5 billion by September 30. This shows how penalties from the EU have become routine for the largest U.S. tech firms operating in Europe.
In 2024, public technology companies based in Europe paid €3.2 billion in income tax. During the same year, regulators collected €3.8 billion in fines from U.S. technology firms. That means penalties alone exceeded the entire tax contribution of the listed European tech companies.
Officials inside the bloc privately acknowledge that if SAP relocated operations to the United States, nearly half of that tax base would disappear, leaving fines as a growing revenue stream for the EU.
EU regulators stack fines on Google across ads, Android, and AI
The European Commission first fined Google €2.95 billion for adtech abuses tied to self-preferencing and conflicts inside its advertising supply chain.
Regulators ordered the company to stop favoring its own ad services and restructure how it handles auctions and placement tools across Europe.
Earlier rulings targeted mobile dominance. The Commission issued a €4.34 billion fine over illegal Android practices that forced device makers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome. Officials said those deals locked out rivals before users ever turned on their phones. Enforcement did not stop there.
In December 2025, regulators opened a fresh investigation into whether Google uses publisher content and YouTube material to train its AI Overviews without fair payment. The probe focuses on whether that conduct harms competitors while boosting Google’s AI products inside the EU.
EU laws pull Washington into a widening political clash
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has accused Brussels of targeting U.S. firms while allowing European companies to operate freely in America. His administration has warned of retaliation if enforcement continues. The U.S. State Department said this week it would deny visas to a former European commissioner and four others, stating they “have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states, in each case targeting American speakers and American companies.”
Tensions escalated after the launch of the Digital Services Act, which apparently governs content moderation on social platforms, per the Commission’s notice.
Shortly after, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative accused the EU and several member states of pushing “discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines and directives” against U.S. service providers while firms like Accenture, DHL, Siemens, and Spotify operate without similar barriers in the United States.
Elon Musk’s platform X received the first fine under the DSA on December 5, totaling €120 million, or about $140 million, for design practices tied to the blue check system and allegedly blocking researcher access to public data, according to the EU.
Alongside the DSA, the Digital Markets Act now governs competition. Seven gatekeepers fall under its scope: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Microsoft, Meta, and Booking.com.
The DSA law strictly bans any forced use of pre-installed services, and it also requires an open App store choice from Apple, along with mandates on messaging interoperability. Apple had to pay €500 million in April for blocking alternative payments, while Meta paid €200 million for data use violations tied to Facebook and Instagram.
European Commission president Urusula von der Lyn warned that repeat breaches from these companies will lead to penalties reaching 20% of global turnover.
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