EU antitrust regulators say Google is abusing the dominant position of its Android mobile operating system, a move which could hit a key money-spinner for the company.
The charges by the European Commission has opened up a new battle with Google, hence, putting it at risk of hefty fines and thorough changes to its business practices.
We gathered that Google is already facing EU charges of promoting its own shopping service in Internet searches at the expense of rival products, a case which has hauled on since late 2010.
The stakes are higher in the Android case for Google, which made about $11 billion from ad sales on Android phones with Google apps such as Maps, Search and Gmail last year.
Margrethe Vestager, European Competition Commissioner, in a statement said a competitive mobile Internet sector is increasingly important for consumers and businesses in Europe and based on Google’s behavior, consumers are denied a wider choice of mobile apps and services because they stand in the way of other players.
It said about 80 percent of smart mobile devices in Europe and in the world run on Android, the mobile operating system developed by Google.
Google has breached EU antitrust rules, the Commission asserts, by requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google’s Chrome browser and preventing manufacturers from selling mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code.
It is also charged with giving financial incentives to manufacturers and network operators to pre-install exclusively Google search on devices.
