The European Commission has fined Google €890mn for breaching the Digital Markets Act, finding that the company favoured its own services in search results and blocked developers from steering users to cheaper offers.

The commission issued two separate penalties on July 23, of  €460mn and €430mn, covering self-preferencing on Google Search and restrictions on steering in the Google Play app store.

Google gave preferential treatment to its own shopping, hotels, sports results and transport services over rival offerings in search results, the commission found, placing them more prominently at the top of pages and applying enhanced visuals and filters not available to competitors. In the second case, the commission found Google had prevented app developers from presenting cheaper offers to customers through Google Play.

"Google must now bring the non-compliance to an end and to refrain from continuing it in the future," said Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy at the commission, adding that the decisions signal the commission will use its tools to safeguard the business and innovation opportunities created by the Digital Markets Act.

Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google and Alphabet, said enforcement of the act was damaging widely used products. He said compliance was forcing the company to remove real-time search features including instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights and restaurants, and to dismantle safety protections on Google Play.

He described the outcome as product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants rather than fair competition.

The penalties follow Google's recent unsuccessful appeal against a EUR 4.1bn fine over the dominance of its Android mobile operating system, which the commission found had limited competition and reduced consumer choice.