The European Commission has not fined Google, and it has not issued a decision. What it is expected to do is rule that Google broke the Digital Markets Act by ranking its own shopping, travel and specialised services above competing ones in search results. Search Engine Land reported on 15 July that the decision is anticipated the week after. Everything below is an expectation, not an outcome, and the difference matters if you are tempted to act on it.
What the Commission is expected to find
The expected finding is self-preferencing: that Google unlawfully prioritised its own shopping, travel and specialised services in search results, in breach of the DMA.
Fines are expected to run into the hundreds of millions of euros across two DMA decisions. A compliance clock comes attached. If Google fails to comply within 60 days, daily penalties are possible. In practice the daily penalty is the part that moves products. A one-off fine gets paid and absorbed. A meter that runs every day until a specific thing changes does not get absorbed.
The remedy matters more than the fine
The money is not the interesting part of this one. The Commission may also order Google to give third-party search engines access to search data, including ranking, query, click and view metrics. It may also require Google to give third-party AI providers access to features currently available to Gemini.
Anyone who works in search should read that twice. Ranking, query, click and view data is what the SEO tooling industry currently estimates or infers rather than reads directly. If competing search engines were given access to it by regulatory order, the ceiling on what can be known about rankings would move, and so would the quality of the numbers agency and in-house teams plan from.
The operative phrase is 'may order'. This is a possible remedy inside a decision that has not been published.
Google's position
Google has argued that sharing search data would threaten user privacy, and that requiring it would exceed the Commission's authority. That argument is on the record, per Search Engine Land, and it is the argument to expect again if there is an appeal.
Who would gain if the ruling lands as reported
Self-preferencing cases are about position, not about the ranking algorithm. If a remedy forced Google to surface third-party services where it currently surfaces its own shopping, travel and specialised units, the sites that gain space are comparison, travel and shopping sites in Europe. That is a change in what occupies the area above and around the organic results.
Note the scope. A DMA remedy applies to the European Union. It does not automatically change what a searcher in Bangkok sees.
What this means for Thai marketers
The Commission's case is about Europe. Thailand is not named in it, and a Brussels decision is not a forecast for Thai search results.
Two reasons to keep half an eye on it anyway:
- If you sell into Europe, EU search results are a market you already compete in. A layout change there is a visibility change for your European traffic, whatever happens in Thailand.
- Product changes forced in one market sometimes travel to others, and sometimes they don't. Either way they take time. You find out by watching, not by restructuring in advance.
The useful response is unglamorous: don't rebuild anything around a ruling that has not been issued. Keep working on the visibility you control, which means pages that answer real queries, a site that can be crawled, and content that earns links because it deserves them. That is what SEO in Thailand rewards regardless of what Brussels decides. If you run a retail catalogue, the same logic applies to ecommerce marketing. The brands least exposed to a SERP layout change are the ones not renting all of their demand from a single placement.
Questions worth asking
Has Google been fined?
No. As reported, the decision is expected rather than issued. Fines in the hundreds of millions of euros are anticipated across two DMA decisions, but nothing has been announced.
When is the decision expected?
The week after 15 July, according to Search Engine Land's report.
Would third-party access to search data include my keywords?
Unknown, and not worth guessing about. The reported possible remedy covers ranking, query, click and view metrics being made accessible to third-party search engines. What that looks like in practice depends on a decision that does not exist yet.
Does this change anything for Thai search results?
Nothing announced does, because nothing has been announced. The DMA governs the European Union, and the reported case concerns Google's treatment of its own services in that market.
The short version
An expected ruling is a reason to read, not a reason to act. If it arrives as reported, the data-access remedy is the part that would change day-to-day SEO work more than the fine does, and it would change Europe first. If you want a clear read on where your organic visibility is actually exposed, that conversation is worth having now, independently of what the Commission does next week.
