One year on from EU ruling it’s “big business as usual for Google” with Trump fears holding back action.
4th September 2026, Cologne/Brussels – Google generated an average €288 million in revenue in the EU every single day in the year since the European Commission judged that the company has broken competition law, according to exclusive new figures obtained by campaigners. [1]
Almost one year ago today the Commission made a landmark ruling that Google was acting illegally as both the buyer and seller in the lucrative market for selling adverts on websites.
At the time of the ruling, the Commission stated that Google would likely have to sell parts of its business to comply with the law – yet changes proposed by Google fall well short, prompting campaigners to accuse the Commission of failing to enforce its own judgement.
Google disagrees with the Commission’s ad tech decision and is appealing. They argue their compliance plan fully addresses the Commission’s decision while avoiding a break-up.
It comes amidst repeated threats from the Trump administration of increased tariffs should the EU force Google to comply with its own laws, as well as similar threats on other cases regarding Google. A US Federal judge earlier this week rejected the Justice Department’s request to force Google to sell its ad exchange, despite previously finding that Google had monopolised parts of the ad tech market. This puts renewed focus on the European Commission’s own case.
Ava Lee, Executive Director of People vs Big Tech, said:
“This is a straightforward case of the European Commission failing to enforce its own laws as a result of President Trump’s threats. It’s big business as usual for Google an entire year after the Commission’s ruling, making a mockery of EU law.”
“The EU is rolling out the red carpet for Donald Trump and his tech billionaire friends, sending hundreds of millions of Euros to Google everyday, without addressing the stranglehold it has on European business. Given the news this week that the US will not act as decisively as the Department of Justice has called for, it’s time for the EU to show it will act in defence of the rule of law.”
These exclusive new figures obtained by People vs Big Tech, LobbyControl, Rebalance Now, WeMove Europe and the Balanced Economy Project underline just how much Google continues to reap across European Member States whilst carrying out illegal business operations.
In 2024 alone, people, companies, and governments across the EU contributed an estimated €105 billion to Google, equivalent to €1 million every 5 minutes (or €288 million per day or €2 billion each week).
Yet more than a third of a million people in the EU have called for tougher action on Google. 123.700 have signed a petition led by Lobby Control and Rebalance Now petition, whilst Avaaz have seen 175,000 signees and WeMove Europe 88,000. It’s clear the people demand change.
Max Bank, EU Competition Lead at Rebalance Now said:
“Google has long been handed control of the digital advertising ecosystem, allowing it market domination. This has undermined competition, weakened independent journalism and enabled Google to act as both referee and player in the same market.”
“Google has shown it will not act of its own accord to make the changes needed and the Commission must step up. Forcing Google to break up its ad tech business would restore competitive conditions, reduce systemic conflicts of interest and send a clear signal that no company—no matter how large or influential—is above Europe’s competition rules.”
Claire Godfrey, Executive Director of Balanced Economy Project said:
“More than a year ago, the European Commission confirmed what we’ve long known: Google holds monopoly power over what gets funded, what gets seen by the public, and what survives in our online spaces.”
“The Commission does not need more evidence. It needs to finish what it started, with mandatory divestment of Google’s ad tech business. Failing to act threatens our democracies.”
On 5th September 2025 the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules and ordered them to propose how they were going to stop self-preferencing. The Commission said Google broke EU competition rules by favouring its own ad tech services at the expense of other providers and online publishers.
Further pictures from the protest stunt:
Credit: Rebalance Now/ LobbyControl. Use is permitted for editorial and non-commercial purposes.
[1] These 2024 figures of Google’s revenues were collected, verified and kindly shared with us by the Media and Journalism Research Center, who have previously published similar analyses. They come from the revenues reported in corporate filings by Google entities incorporated in 19 EU countries. We aggregated the EU revenues and used the total to calculate revenue per year, month, week etc. We then applied this rate from the date of the EU’s ad tech ruling (5 September 2025).
