Two New Fronts Open Against Google in Europe

While Google's U.S. antitrust appeal was still making headlines, Europe quietly moved to a two-front war.

Germany's Handelsblatt, citing European Commission sources, reported Monday that the EU is preparing a fine in the "high triple-digit million euro" range against Google — meaning somewhere between €700 million and €999 million. That would be the largest penalty ever levied under the EU's Digital Markets Act.

The decision is "nearing completion" and expected before the EU's summer recess, according to Handelsblatt.

Simultaneously, a separate antitrust investigation is breaking out over AI.

The AI Probe: Google Accused of Taking Content Without Paying or Asking

The European Commission formally launched a new antitrust investigation into Google's use of online content to train and power its AI products, according to CNBC and legal firm Loyens & Loeff, which analyzed the Commission's official press release.

Google is using web publishers' articles and YouTube creators' videos to generate its "AI Overviews" and "AI Mode" search features — without compensating those publishers or creators, and without giving them a real choice to opt out.

Publishers who refuse to let Google use their content for AI purposes lose access to Google Search traffic, according to the Commission's findings. On YouTube, Google does not pay YouTube creators for the content it uses to train its AI models. Competing AI companies cannot access YouTube content at all — YouTube's own policies block them. So Google gets an exclusive training dataset that rivals cannot touch.

EU Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera said, as quoted by CNBC: "AI is bringing remarkable innovation and many benefits for people and businesses across Europe, but this progress cannot come at the expense of the principles at the heart of our societies."

Google's response was predictable. A company spokesperson told CNBC: "This complaint risks stifling innovation in a market that is more competitive than ever." The company also said it will "continue to work closely with the news and creative industries as they transition to the AI era."

What the DMA Fight Is Actually About

The older DMA case — the one tied to that looming nine-figure fine — centers on Google favoring its own services in search results. The investigation officially launched in March 2025, according to the NY Post.

Google has already made changes to its search product in Europe to try to comply. But the company is not happy about it. A Google spokesperson said the DMA changes represent "the biggest downgrade in the product's history, creating a second-rate experience for Europeans."

The EU Commission's spokesperson Thomas Regnier disputed that framing. "The commission is more interested in securing compliance rather than imposing penalties," Regnier said in an emailed statement. "But we will not hesitate to move to the next steps as soon as possible."

The message to Google: comply or face penalties. The fine is expected to come either way.

The Bigger Picture: €8 Billion and Counting

This isn't the EU's first enforcement action against Google. According to Wikipedia's documentation of EU antitrust cases, the bloc has already fined Google over €8 billion across three separate cases — Google Shopping, Android, and Google AdSense. In September 2024 alone, the EU fined Google nearly €3 billion for antitrust violations in the ad tech market, according to CNBC.

Google's global head of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, called that September decision "wrong" and said the company would appeal.

Google is simultaneously appealing past fines, fighting the current DMA compliance battle, and facing a brand-new AI content investigation. The regulatory pressure is mounting across multiple fronts.

What Mainstream Coverage Is Missing

Most coverage treats this as a clean Europe-versus-Big-Tech story. The situation involves competing interests.

The EU Commission's stated priority is compliance, not punishment. These fines are leverage — the goal is to reshape how Google operates in Europe. Whether that's good policy or regulatory overreach depends on how one views government power.

The AI content probe raises a genuinely difficult question: Should a platform have the right to use the content hosted on it to train AI models? YouTube's terms of service say yes. The EU says that's an abuse of dominance. Both positions have merit.

The competition argument against Google — that a company using its monopoly position to lock out competitors from training data is a market fairness problem — is valid regardless of one's politics.

What deserves more attention: the financial hit to content creators — journalists, YouTubers, publishers — who are watching their work get vacuumed into AI products with zero compensation and zero recourse.

What This Means for You

If you use Google Search or YouTube, your searches and your favorite creators' content are already part of this fight. Google is training its AI on that material now.

For American taxpayers and businesses, the EU's regulatory machine has real teeth — €8 billion already extracted, another potential €700 million-plus on the way, and a fresh AI probe that could reshape how every major tech platform operates globally.

Google's legal bills alone are mounting rapidly. And the EU's enforcement actions are continuing.