The European Commission’s decision to sanction Google for failing to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA)’s rules on self-preferencing marks a significant step towards making Europe’s digital economy fairer and more competitive. The message is clear: dominant digital platforms cannot use their gatekeeper position to favour their own services over those of others.
The real measure of success, however, will be whether Google’s compliance measures create a search environment where small hospitality businesses, including hotels, restaurants and cafés, can compete fairly for consumers’ attention. Compliance should not only eliminate Google’s own self-preferencing practices; it must also ensure that the new Search experience provides fair visibility to businesses and does not unintentionally strengthen other powerful online intermediaries.
That distinction matters
Small hospitality operators have become increasingly dependent on digital intermediaries to reach customers. It is no coincidence that two of the most important digital platforms used by the hospitality sector have been designated as gatekeepers under the DMA.
The Commission rightly concluded that Google continued to favour its own specialised services in Search. However, for the hospitality sector, an equally important question remains: will Google’s new compliance solution genuinely improve the visibility of businesses themselves, or will it simply redirect even more traffic towards other large intermediaries?
This is not a theoretical concern
Google’s first attempt to comply with the DMA illustrated precisely this risk. By removing interactive features, including maps and free booking links, and reverting many hospitality searches to a traditional list of blue links, Google significantly reduced the visibility of independent hospitality businesses and their direct offers.
Ironically, the Commission rejected that first compliance attempt because Google had failed to eliminate its own self-preferencing, not because the changes risked weakening the position of direct hospitality offers and strengthening other powerful online intermediaries.
Yet the DMA was designed to make digital markets more contestable, empower businesses that depend on online platforms, and ultimately offer consumers greater choice. Compliance cannot therefore be considered successful if Google’s solution merely shifts market power from Google to other digital intermediaries while independent hospitality businesses lose further opportunities to compete for bookings and build direct relationships with their customers.
⚠️ We have fined Google €890 million for breaching the Digital Markets Act, by promoting their own services and restricting customer access to alternatives on Google Search and Google Play.https://t.co/zFChIQxKua pic.twitter.com/QTqdpS6dyY
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) July 23, 2026
Google is now testing a revised compliance solution, which the Commission will continue to assess. While it remains too early to judge its full impact, there are legitimate reasons to scrutinise whether the new design could once again undermine the visibility of small hospitality operators and give online intermediaries an unintended competitive advantage.
The Commission’s assessment should therefore look beyond the formal treatment of Google’s own services and consider the competitive impact of the proposed solution. Our joint statements with the airline and rail sectors reflect this shared expectation: DMA compliance should strengthen competition across the travel ecosystem, not simply redistribute market power among large digital intermediaries.
If this broader competitive impact were overlooked, whether because of a gap in the DMA’s design or an overly narrow interpretation of its provisions, it would set a dangerous precedent. It would suggest that a compliance solution can satisfy the letter of the law while undermining its fundamental objective: creating fairer and more contestable markets for the businesses that rely on gatekeepers.
Today, the @EU_Commission provides guidance to Google under the Digital Markets Act to:
— Digital EU 🇪🇺 (@DigitalEU) July 16, 2026
→ enable interoperability with Android for AI services
→ provide search engines & AI chatbots with search function with access to Google's anonymised search datahttps://t.co/W839tKLusx pic.twitter.com/k3MhoH8V2q
This debate extends far beyond Google Search, at a time when European hospitality businesses face additional immediate challenges that risk further undermining competitiveness and the ability to operate independently.
First, the rise of conversational AI is reshaping travel discovery, making AI assistants a gateway to hospitality businesses. The Google case could set important rules for future AI-driven travel tools, as poor representation in Search today may lead to even lower visibility in AI-generated recommendations tomorrow.
Second, the EU is considering repealing the Platform-to-Business (P2B) Regulation, which introduced fairness and transparency obligations for online platforms and paved the way for the DMA. Removing these protections could leave independent hospitality businesses with fewer means to challenge unfair practices beyond the relatively narrow scope of the DMA.
Ensuring that Google’s new Search experience treats hotels, restaurants, and cafés fairly is therefore about far more than one compliance case. It will determine whether the DMA fulfils its broader promise of creating digital markets where businesses compete on the quality of their offer, rather than on the market power of the platforms standing between them and their customers.
The Commission has taken an important first step. The next one is even more important. The success of the DMA will not ultimately be judged by the size of the fine imposed on Google, but by whether Europe’s hospitality businesses emerge with greater visibility, greater choice and a genuine opportunity to compete on equal terms in the digital marketplace.
