EU Tech Rules Ripple Through Portugal as Google Warns of Hidden Costs

Over the summer you may have noticed that booking a hotel room through Google felt slower, that Android kept insisting you approve new pop-ups, and that some of the company’s artificial-intelligence tricks simply never arrived on your Portuguese handset. None of this is a bug, argues Google. The California group says it is the direct consequence of Brussels’ new Digital Markets Act, and it is pushing back hard before the rules are revised next year.

A Portuguese Lens on a European Showdown

For residents from Vila Real to Faro, the debate is less abstract than it sounds. The price you pay for a weekend in Madeira, the security of your banking app and the moment a new AI-powered service reaches your smartphone are all on the table. Google contends that the DMA obliges it to display more links from paid intermediaries in travel searches, driving up costs that “eventually land on Portuguese wallets”. Consumer association Deco Proteste counters that tighter reins on Big Tech could finally deliver real choice in the search, browser and app-store markets. The clash illustrates how regulation aimed at giants often ricochets onto small businesses and individual users in peripheral EU economies like Portugal’s.

Inside Google’s Catalogue of Complaints

Mountain View’s submission to the European Commission runs to hundreds of pages, but four arguments stand out. First, the company claims the DMA’s ban on “self-preferencing” guts the rich “one-box” travel answers that once led directly to airlines and hotels, replacing them with intermediaries that charge commission. According to internal analytics, Portuguese tourism operators have seen direct clicks from Google Search fall by as much as 30 % since March 2024. Second, Google warns that complying with articles 5(4) and 6(11) forces it to loosen Android gatekeeping, creating new entry points for malware. Third, an economic study it bankrolls predicts European businesses could forgo up to €114 B in revenue over the coming decade because flagship AI products will roll out up to a year later in the EU. Finally, it says constant legal uncertainty has chilled in-house experimentation, turning lawyers into the new product managers.

Brussels Is Unmoved—and Doubles Down

Commission officials privately admit the DMA was drafted with Google in mind, yet they insist the law merely applies basic competition principles to the digital era. Since the rules became fully enforceable, the EU has opened fresh proceedings targeting Google’s ad-tech stack and the Play Store, threatening fines of up to 10 % of global turnover—more than $30 B at 2024 revenue levels. In early September regulators also levied a €2.95 B penalty over alleged advertising self-dealing. Sources in Brussels say the DMA “is here to stay” and that any security risks must be fixed by engineers, not by rewriting the statute.

Experts and Rivals Weigh the Trade-offs

Competition scholars at the University of Coimbra concede there is “a short-term learning curve” as services unbundle, but they argue that choice screens, rival app stores and new data-sharing obligations will open space for Portuguese start-ups that today struggle to surface above Google’s algorithmic tide. Apple, meanwhile, sides with Google on several points, claiming it had to postpone live-translation features for AirPods in the EU because of the same legislation. Smaller travel platforms such as eDreams Odigeo cheer the changes, saying users finally reach their sites without being steered back to Google’s proprietary modules. The net result, says former AdC president Margarida Matos Rosa, will depend on how courts reconcile privacy, security and contestability in cases already queuing up before Luxembourg judges.

What to Watch Between Now and 2026

The Commission wrapped up a public consultation in September and is expected to publish tweaks to the DMA in early 2026. Google hopes for a “reset”, yet officials caution that only technical clarifications—not a wholesale rewrite—are on the cards. In the meantime Portuguese consumers will serve as unwilling beta-testers in a tug-of-war between one of the world’s richest firms and the continent’s most assertive regulator. Whether that results in cheaper holidays, safer phones or simply more cookie banners will become clear as the next wave of compliance deadlines hits in January.