For eight years, Google ran one of the most expensive stalling operations in corporate legal history. It didn’t work.

Europe’s highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, has dismissed Google’s final appeal against its landmark Android antitrust fine, according to Ars Technica. The bill: €4.1 billion, or roughly $4.7 billion. There are no more courts to appeal to. The money is owed.

What Google Actually Did Wrong

The original fine — a then-record €4.34 billion — was handed down back in 2018. European antitrust regulators took issue with how Google bundles its own apps with Android. Every Samsung, Xiaomi, or other Android phone comes pre-loaded with Google Search and Chrome as defaults, locked in by Android’s licensing agreements. Regulators argued this gave Google an unfair structural advantage over rival search engines and browsers before users even switched on their phones.

Google’s defense was straightforward: Android is an open platform, alternatives are freely available, and users can change their defaults whenever they want. CEO Sundar Pichai said in 2018 that Android had created “more choice, not less,” according to Ars Technica.

The problem with that argument is human behavior. As Google knows better than almost anyone, people almost never change their default settings. Being the default isn’t just an advantage — it’s the ballgame.

A lower court trimmed the fine slightly in 2022, bringing it down from €4.34 billion to €4.1 billion. That reduction is now the final number.

The Delay-Everything Playbook — And Its Limits

Google’s approach here mirrors what Microsoft did a generation earlier, when the EU went after Internet Explorer’s dominance. Microsoft fought, delayed, and eventually complied — but by the time browser ballot screens arrived on Windows, Internet Explorer was already losing market share on its own. The regulatory action was almost beside the point.

Google tried the same move. It introduced search choice screens on Android when the original ruling came down in 2018. But unlike Internet Explorer, Google Search hasn’t crumbled. Its market position remains firmly intact, according to Ars Technica. The delay bought time without delivering a different outcome.

That’s the lesson regulators — and other tech giants — should take from this ruling. The EU’s willingness to grind through nearly a decade of legal challenges and still collect the fine intact signals that the war of attrition has limits. Europe will wait you out.

For Big Tech, the message from Brussels is becoming hard to ignore: delay tactics are expensive, and Europe has time on its side.