Europe Can Fine Google. Canada Is Still in Court
Matthew Leo · Published July 28, 2026 · Business & Policy
Europe can now fine Google for breaking rules written specifically for dominant digital platforms. Canada is still trying to prove a separate Google case through conventional competition litigation.
The European Union recently imposed its first Digital Markets Act fine against Google. According to Reuters’ July 28 report, the roughly US$1-billion penalty concerned Google favouring its own services and restricting app developers from steering users toward cheaper purchasing options outside Google Play.
Google says private claims arising from European competition disputes lack merit and may still challenge the new fine.
Canada also has a major competition case against Google. It is important to be precise: the Canadian case concerns advertising technology, not the same search and app-store conduct addressed by the European decision.
The European and Canadian cases are different
| Question | European Union | Canada |
|---|---|---|
| Main conduct | Self-preferencing and app-store steering restrictions | Alleged abuse of dominance in web-advertising technology |
| Primary legal tool | Digital Markets Act | Competition Act |
| Current stage | Fine imposed; challenge remains possible | Litigation continues before the Competition Tribunal |
| Requested or imposed remedies | Financial penalty and compliance changes | Divestiture, conduct restrictions and a financial penalty requested |
The table matters because it would be misleading to suggest that Europe has already decided Canada’s case. It has not.
What Europe demonstrates is the difference between a law that sets advance obligations for designated platforms and a case in which the regulator must establish abuse through litigation.
Canada’s case targets the machinery behind web ads
In November 2024, the Competition Bureau filed an application against Google concerning the automated systems used to buy and sell advertisements on websites.
The Bureau alleges that Google used its position across the advertising-technology supply chain to lock publishers and advertisers into its products, weaken rivals and entrench its market power.
It is asking the Competition Tribunal to require Google to sell two advertising-technology tools, prohibit the alleged conduct and impose an administrative monetary penalty.
Those are allegations, not findings. Google is entitled to contest them.
In March 2026, the Competition Tribunal dismissed Google’s constitutional challenge concerning its authority to order monetary penalties. The underlying abuse-of-dominance case continues.
Why publishers should care
Advertising technology sounds like the plumbing beneath an industry nobody volunteered to understand. For independent websites, however, that plumbing determines how advertisements are auctioned, how much revenue reaches the publisher and how much control one intermediary can exercise.
Google operates services used by advertisers purchasing space, publishers selling it and the auctions connecting them. The Competition Bureau’s case argues that this overlap has been used anti-competitively.
A healthier advertising market would not magically rescue every publisher. Advertising rates also depend on audience quality, economic conditions, privacy changes and competition from large platforms.
But publishers should not have to accept a distorted market simply because other problems also exist.
This connects to Mapletechie’s broader concern about AI browsers and the future of the open web. Publishers increasingly face pressure from search summaries, AI answers, social platforms and advertising intermediaries at the same time. Each layer can reduce the value reaching the organization that produced the original work.
The Digital Markets Act changes the starting point
Traditional competition cases often examine years of conduct and require regulators to prove dominance, abuse and market effects. Appeals can extend the process further.
The European Digital Markets Act starts by designating powerful “gatekeepers” and imposing obligations intended to prevent specific behaviour before another decade of litigation passes.
That approach can also make mistakes. Rules drafted broadly may interfere with legitimate product integration, security or platform management. Enforcement still needs evidence and proportionality.
The advantage is speed and clarity. A designated platform knows the obligations in advance, and the regulator has penalties available when it concludes those obligations were breached.
Canada should judge its system by outcomes
Canada does not need to copy every line of European technology law. It does need to ask whether its institutions can deliver a meaningful remedy while the affected market still exists.
A competition victory that arrives after rivals have disappeared and publishers have adapted to permanent dependence is a historical record, not an effective intervention.
The European fine does not prove Google violated Canadian law. It does show what a regulator can do when Parliament gives it a purpose-built digital-market tool.
Canada’s case may eventually produce divestitures, restrictions, a penalty or no remedy at all. Until the Tribunal decides, the honest description is simple: Europe has acted, while Canada is still arguing its case.
Tags: Google, competition, Digital Markets Act, ad tech, Canada