In a landmark victory for European antitrust enforcement, the EU Court of Justice confirmed the €4.125 billion fine against Alphabet, Google’s parent company, over its abuse of Android’s dominance. According to L’Espresso, Brussels found that Google leveraged the Android operating system to entrench its search engine and Chrome browser on smartphones — essentially building a monopoly on the back of what came pre-installed on billions of devices.
The ruling is an enormous win for the European Commission’s competition authority, though it arrives a full eight years after the original decision was handed down. The case has become a bellwether for how Europe regulates Big Tech, and its confirmation at the highest judicial level sends an unmistakable signal: the era of unchecked platform dominance faces real legal limits, at least on the European continent.
