Balanced Economy Project’s reaction to Google’s €890 million fine to breaching the Digital Markets Act

After a two-year investigation into non-compliance of the Digital Markets Act, the European Commission has fined Google a total of €890 million for two breaches of its obligations under the Act. 
  
It follows a long-running Digital Markets Act (DMA) investigation into Google over the company’s tactics around search ranking and its app marketplace Google Play. It is welcome that the European Commission has not wavered against US pressure and is enforcing the bloc’s marquee competition legislation to protect European citizens and business.  
  
But we should suspend our excitement. Yesterday, Google reported its quarterly total revenue of $119.8 billion. This equates to $9.983 billion a week. Google makes roughly 11 times the fine total in revenue weekly. Astonishingly, this major fine is peanuts to Google. 
  
There's also an elephant in the room.  Last September, the Commission fined Google €2.95 billion for abusing its dominance in Adtech, and signalled that only a structural remedy can tackle the conflict of interest in its abuse. The European Commission need to take the next step of breaking up structural power of the tech giants if they are to create the conditions for a new digital economy that serves public goals, fines in themselves are not will not deliver this.