European authorities have intensified oversight of major technology companies in recent years, opening multiple investigations and imposing substantial fines across the sector.
Alphabet’s Google was fined €2.95 billion ($3.45 billion) in September 2025 for anti-competitive practices in its adtech business. The company has also faced fines of €2.42 billion and €1.49 billion in previous cases related to search and price comparison services. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority found Google had abused its dominant position in digital advertising and began probing its collaborations with AI startup Anthropic. In March 2024, France fined Google €250 million for breaches of EU intellectual property rules in its dealings with media publishers, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
Amazon’s request to remove its designation as a platform subject to stricter EU content rules was rejected by the EU General Court in November 2025. Apple has faced fines of €500 million under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and lost multiple appeals against EU regulatory assessments in Germany and Ireland. In July 2024, Apple agreed to open its tap-and-go mobile payments system to rivals to settle an EU antitrust probe. In March 2024, Brussels fined Apple €1.84 billion for restricting competition in music streaming.
Meta is under a new antitrust investigation over AI features in WhatsApp, opened by the European Commission on December 4, 2025. The company was fined €797.72 million in November 2024 for anti-competitive practices benefiting Facebook Marketplace and faced additional charges for failing to comply with the DMA. Microsoft was charged in June 2024 for illegally bundling Teams with its Office product. TikTok and Meta were found in October 2025 to have breached obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to grant researchers access to public data, while TikTok was previously charged in May 2025 for failing to maintain an advertisement repository.
European regulators are increasingly leveraging the DMA and DSA frameworks to enforce transparency, fair competition, and accountability across digital platforms, signaling continued scrutiny of Big Tech’s influence in the region.
News.Az
