Google faces $3.9 billion in global fines over privacy and antitrust breaches

Google is grappling with unprecedented sanctions totaling $3.9 billion, as regulators across multiple jurisdictions penalize the tech giant for privacy violations and anticompetitive practices in digital advertising. These fines, levied across three continents within a single week, highlight an intensifying crackdown on one of the world's most dominant companies.

European Union imposes record antitrust fine

The European Union delivered the heaviest blow on Friday, imposing a €2.95 billion ($3.45 billion) fine for abusing its dominance in digital advertising technology. The European Commission found that Google unfairly favored its own advertising services over competitors from 2014 to the present, distorting competition in the lucrative adtech market. EU Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera stated, "Google abused its dominant position in adtech, harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers."

Major privacy settlement in the United States

Earlier this week, a federal jury in San Francisco ordered Google to pay $425 million for privacy violations affecting 98 million smartphone users. The class-action lawsuit, filed in 2020, accused Google of collecting user data despite disabled tracking settings between 2016 and 2024. The court found Google guilty of violating California privacy laws by monitoring users through third-party apps such as Uber, Venmo, and Instagram, even when users believed tracking was turned off.

Court documents revealed that Google collected data from approximately 174 million devices, with plaintiffs alleging the company "intercepts, tracks, collects, and sells browsing histories from mobile apps." The settlement applies to users who disabled "Web & App Activity" settings but whose data was still sent to Google via non-Google apps.

French regulators crack down on cookie violations

Simultaneously, France's data protection authority, CNIL, fined Google €325 million ($378 million) for violating cookie regulations. The regulator found that Google displayed ads in Gmail's "Promotions" and "Social" tabs without proper user consent, affecting over 74 million accounts. CNIL noted this was Google's fourth cookie-related violation since 2020, labeling the company’s behavior as "negligent."

Trump administration reacts to EU fine

Former U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the EU's decision, calling it "very unfair" and threatening retaliatory trade measures. Writing on Truth Social, Trump claimed Europe was "taking money that would otherwise go to American investments and jobs." He hinted at potential tariffs on EU products under Section 301 of U.S. trade law. This response follows heightened tensions over tech industry regulations and comes days after Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai praised Trump for a separate antitrust legal victory in the U.S.

A growing wave of regulatory pressure

These fines are part of a broader trend of increasing scrutiny on Google's business practices. In May, the company agreed to pay $1.375 billion to Texas to settle claims of illegal location tracking and biometric data collection without user consent. This marked the largest privacy-related settlement ever secured by a single U.S. state against the tech giant.

Google plans to appeal both the EU’s antitrust fine and the U.S. privacy ruling. Company spokesperson Jose Castaneda defended its practices, stating that Google’s "privacy tools give people control over their data, and when users disable personalization, we respect their choice." Regarding the EU fine, Google argued that the ruling was "incorrect" and would harm "thousands of European businesses."

The convergence of these penalties within a short period signals a global shift in regulatory oversight, as authorities increasingly hold tech giants accountable for their data management practices and market power.