20260703 Milliardenstrafe für Google

03.07.2026 Milliardenstrafe für Google

4 Billions Fine for Google

For nearly 8 years, Google has been ordered to pay a fine of over 4 billion euros for preinstalling its own Android operating system along with other proprietary software, thereby putting other manufacturers at a disadvantage. For a long time, appeals have been made to Commission President von der Leyen to enforce this fine. To build pressure, Rebalance Now, LobbyControl, Greenpeace, and PeoplevsBigTech used the evening before the EU meeting on June 18 to project images onto prominent buildings in Brussels.

Rebalance Now writes to us, a supporter of the petition: More than 120,000 citizens are calling for consistent enforcement of our tech regulations instead of caving in to pressure from Trump and Big Tech in the U.S. Thank you for your support of our petition! Unfortunately, Commission President von der Leyen did not want to accept the signatures that day.

In our petition, we call on Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission to consistently enforce the Digital Markets Act against Google and to defend our democratic rules against the power of the big tech companies. Background: Google is violating Europe’s digital rules. The European Commission had therefore already sought to impose a fine in the billions. However, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is said to have blocked the decision at the last minute — apparently out of concern over political pressure from the U.S.

On the eve of the high-level meeting on June 18, we joined forces with many coalition partners—including LobbyControl, Greenpeace, and PeoplevsBigTech — to project an image onto the Council and Commission buildings in Brussels with the slogan: “Fight for us, not for Trump’s billionaires.” This was another way we increased the pressure on von der Leyen to consistently enforce our rules against the power of the tech giants.
Thank you for supporting us with your signature.

Best regards,
Max Bank, EU Policy Officer, Rebalance Now

This week, the General Court of the EU slightly reduced the fine but upheld it at over 4 billion euros in an appeal proceeding. Now Google can’t really wriggle out of this one.