Google's Two EU Antitrust Fights Are Both Awaiting a Verdict — And Brussels Isn't Tipping Its Hand

Google's Two EU Antitrust Fights Are Both Awaiting a Verdict — And Brussels Isn't Tipping Its Hand

Google is currently running two separate, unresolved negotiations with European regulators over how it does business — one over advertising technology, one over AI-powered search — and according to trade press covering both cases, neither has a confirmed outcome yet. That makes this less a single rumor and more a live regulatory standoff worth watching closely, because either case could end in a forced structural change to how Google operates in Europe, or in nothing more than a tweaked policy and an appeal that drags on for years.

The Ad-Tech Case: A Breakup Threat That Hasn't Gone Away

The European Commission fined Google roughly €2.95 billion (about $3.5 billion) in September 2025 for what it called anti-competitive "self-preferencing" in its advertising technology stack — essentially, tilting the plumbing that connects publishers, advertisers, and ad exchanges in Google's own favor. Crucially, the Commission didn't stop at a fine. It ordered Google to end the conflicts of interest baked into that stack, and left open the possibility of a forced breakup of its ad-tech business if Google's fixes weren't convincing enough.

Google's answer, reported in November 2025, was to reject a full breakup outright and instead offer a package of changes — letting publishers set different minimum bid prices inside Google Ad Manager and improving interoperability with rival ad-tech systems. According to Global Competition Review, the Commission has since been circulating a non-confidential version of that proposal to roughly 200 industry stakeholders — publishers, advertisers, and competing ad-tech vendors — essentially running a market test to gauge whether the fix is real or cosmetic.

That test is reportedly still underway, and no final Commission decision confirming or rejecting Google's remedy has been publicly announced as of this writing. Some trade-press headlines have framed the story as Google "avoiding" a breakup, but that characterization appears to get ahead of any official ruling — the stakeholder consultation itself is the live, unresolved part of the story. Google, for its part, has said it will appeal the underlying fine regardless of how the remedy talks turn out.

The Newer Front: Does an "Opt-Out" Fix the AI Overviews Problem?

A second, more recent EU investigation — opened in December 2025 — digs into a different complaint: that Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode features use publisher content to generate AI-written answers directly in search results, often without giving publishers a real way to opt out without also disappearing from ordinary search rankings. Publishers have argued, through various industry groups, that this amounts to Google forcing a trade-off that doesn't actually exist for other competitors.

Google's proposed fix, announced alongside a May 2026 overhaul folding AI Overviews and AI Mode into a unified "AI Search" product, is a global opt-out tool that would let website owners block their content from powering Google's AI features while — in theory — keeping their normal search ranking intact. Notably, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority ordered Google to offer essentially the same option on the very same day, suggesting coordinated regulatory pressure on both sides of the Channel.

But whether that opt-out actually satisfies the EU's underlying antitrust concerns is still an open question. According to reporting from outlets including The Star (Malaysia) and the Express Tribune, which cited wire reporting on the matter, EU antitrust regulators sent publishers a formal questionnaire — with an August 28, 2026 deadline — asking whether they would actually use Google's opt-out, and what factors would drive that decision one way or the other. Publishers' answers to that questionnaire could determine whether the Commission accepts Google's remedy or presses ahead toward another fine, on top of the ad-tech one already on the books.

Why Neither Story Has an Ending Yet

It's worth being blunt about the state of both cases: as of early October 2026, there is no confirmed Commission ruling closing out either the ad-tech remedy review or the AI Overviews opt-out review. Both are sitting in a feedback-gathering phase, with regulators collecting input from the same pool of European publishers who have skin in the game on both fronts. That overlap matters — the same publishers broadly unhappy about ad-tech self-preferencing are also the ones being asked whether an AI content opt-out is meaningful, which means their answers to one survey could color how regulators read the other.

For a company that has already absorbed a multi-billion-euro fine from Brussels once this year and is appealing it, the stakes of getting both remedy packages accepted are considerable — not just in euros, but in precedent. If the EU decides Google's ad-tech fixes or AI opt-out are insufficient, it opens the door to the kind of structural remedies (forced divestiture, mandated licensing terms) that regulators elsewhere, including UK and US authorities pursuing their own Google antitrust cases, would likely study closely before deciding how hard to push their own cases.

For now, treat any claim that Google has "settled," "resolved," or "avoided" either case as premature. The honest state of play is: proposals submitted, stakeholders surveyed, and no public verdict from the European Commission on either front.