Kent Walker
President of global affairs at Google, responsible for its public response to the DMA fine and specification decisions.
Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, said on 23 July 2026 that the EU's Digital Markets Act implementation "continues to break everyday products", responding to the Commission's €890m fine that day.
Last refreshed: 26 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Why does Google's top lawyer say the EU's DMA rules break everyday products?
Timeline for Kent Walker
Google fined €890m four days before EU deadline
European Tech SovereigntyBackground
Kent Walker is Google and Alphabet's president of global affairs and chief legal officer, a role he has held since 2021, overseeing content policy, government relations and legal, risk and compliance matters.
He joined Google in 2006 and has led its advocacy on competition, content, copyright and privacy ever since. Before that he was an Assistant US Attorney in San Francisco and Washington DC, where he started one of the first computer-crime units in the country, and later held executive roles at Netscape, AOL and eBay. He graduated from Harvard College and Stanford Law School.
His two-decade tenure managing Google's regulatory relationships makes him the company's standing point of contact whenever EU enforcement escalates, a position that has grown more prominent as Brussels and Washington clash over how American platforms are regulated in Europe.
DMA fine draws public pushback
After the European Commission fined Google €890 million on 23 July for two Digital Markets Act breaches , Walker said the Act's implementation "continues to break everyday products", repeating a line he had used after each Commission enforcement action that month.
As Google's chief legal officer and most senior public-facing executive on regulatory matters, Walker has become the company's default voice in its running dispute with Brussels, a dispute that now sits at the centre of wider transatlantic tension over how Europe regulates American technology platforms. The Commission has treated his objections as the predictable response of a fined gatekeeper and pressed ahead regardless.