Hunch. Three inquiries at an advanced stage point to more decisions, but before this fine the DPC had gone 16 months without fining a big tech firm, and a draft must pass other EU regulators first.
The second-fine market resolves on the DPC latest news page: YES if the DPC announces between 22 September and 21 December 2026 a new final decision that fines any Google company. A draft decision, a reprimand without a fine, or a court confirming the €403m fine does not count.
Almost every big tech company fined by Ireland went to court. We looked at fines the Irish Data Protection Commission gave big tech companies under the GDPR, the EU data law, and checked whether the company went to court within 31 days. Where only the formal appeal is on record, we count it, because the law allows 28 days from notice. Of 13 such fines, 11 went to court. The ten shown are the ones closest to the Google case, and in all ten the company went to court. One regulator made every decision, and Meta or WhatsApp is the company in seven of the ten, so these are not ten separate choices. The EU court ruling of 10 February 2026 came after all of them and adds a route to court that none of them had.