Google is Fined $5.1 Billion in Largest EU Case
We all know Google, right? Heck that name as actually so ingrained into our culture that the name itself has become a verb. If you don’t know what I’m on about, just “google it”. The $5.1 Billion fine is the largest fine ever handed over to any company in the entire history of the EU.
According to the EU watchdog, Google has apparently been abusing the fact that the Android mobile operating system dominates the smartphone market. Just last year, the European Commission fined Google for deliberately lowering the search ranking of competitor shopping comparison tools in order to promote its own.
Margrethe Vestager, who is the EU’s competition chief, alleged that Google had abused Android’s dominance in the market in order to strengthen it’s own lead, effectively crippling any competitors. Such practices have been deemed illegal within the EU market.
Vestager’s recent tweet read, “Fine of €4,34 bn to @Google for 3 types of illegal restrictions on the use of Android. In this way it has cemented the dominance of its search engine. Denying rivals a chance to innovate and compete on the merits. It’s illegal under EU antitrust rules. @Google now has to stop it”.
The more specific charges, or rather accusations brought against the company, allege that Google forced phone manufacturers to pre-install Chrome and Search as a prerequisite for getting Play Store certification. They’ve also been accused of preventing manufacturers from using versions of Android that weren’t specifically approved by Google.
Although we don’t know anything more specific, that last charge is actually rather ridiculous nonetheless. Yes, Android is an open source software, but because you get so many different phone manufacturers all making their own additions and changes within the Android source code, there has to be some kind of compatibility check to ensure that all users have a fluid and problematic-free experience with the operating system.
The ruling has stated that the company must unbundle the Chrome and Search apps form the main Android operating software.
This could lead to a gigantic problem for future device, though. So far, Google hasn’t charged device manufacturers for using Google’s software and technology. This is, in part, why Android devices tend to be more affordable than competing product produced by Apple.
Whilst an appeal on the ruling seems to be planned, they’ve been given no more than 90 days to stop all practices that have been deemed illegal, otherwise they could face additional fines that could total 5% of Alphabet’s (Google’s parent company) global turnover.
