Google is scrambling to avoid massive EU fines by planning a significant overhaul of how it displays search results across Europe. The move comes nearly a year after Brussels charged the tech giant with violating the Digital Markets Act, and it could fundamentally reshape how millions of Europeans book flights, hotels, and restaurants. Starting with lodging results, Google will begin promoting rival services higher than its own products like Google Flights and Google Hotels - a dramatic reversal for a company that's spent two decades perfecting the art of self-preferencing.
Google is about to make one of the biggest changes to its search engine in years, and it's not because the company wants to. According to Reuters, the search giant will start testing a new results layout across Europe that prioritizes competing services for hotels, flights, restaurants, and transportation over Google's own integrated offerings. The rollout begins "soon" with lodging searches, with other categories following in phases.
This isn't a minor tweak to the algorithm. For years, Google has positioned its own services - Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Maps - prominently at the top of relevant searches, pushing third-party booking sites like Expedia, Booking.com, and Kayak further down the page. That strategy has been wildly profitable but also legally precarious. The European Commission charged Google with violating the Digital Markets Act last year, arguing the company was abusing its dominant position to unfairly favor its own vertical search services.
The timing of these changes reveals just how seriously Google is taking the threat. The Digital Markets Act gives the Commission power to fine companies up to 10% of their global annual revenue for non-compliance. For Google, which reported $307 billion in revenue for 2024, that could mean penalties exceeding $30 billion. The company has already been hit with multiple multi-billion-dollar fines from the EU over the past decade for various antitrust violations, including a €4.34 billion penalty in 2018 for Android-related practices.
