Google has lost the antitrust case against it in Russia and now the company is being ordered to unbundle its Android apps which they say will give competition level ground. Google has been under scrutiny from several governments and the antitrust case in the EU is still ongoing. This ruling by the Russian government might have some influence and impact on the EU ruling as well and the company could be forced to take similar steps there. A United States antitrust investigation is also rumored to be underway but no official confirmation has been given.
The reason behind these investigations is the claim that Google puts its own services on Android ahead of other viable competitive services and therefore is taking advantage of the Android platform. The ruling in Russia makes it so Android devices will not be pre-installed with Google’s Android apps but instead it allows the manufacturer and consumer to decide what apps are installed on their devices. Perhaps a user doesn’t want Google Hangouts installed on their device, now they don’t have to have it.
Google has until November 10 to fix the bundle problem. It may face a 1 to 15 percent revenue fine for the violations on services.
There is some speculation that Google may just pull out of Russia altogether but that may be a mistake as Russia does have a large Android base. The company that brought the antitrust complaint against Google, Yandex, is a Russian search company who is looking to get on a more level playing field with Google. It will be interesting to see what the EU ruling will be in that case and how Google is going to deal with the broader implications of guilty verdicts around the globe.
What do you think? Is Google’s use of Android anti-competitive? Does it give the company an unfair advantage? Let us know what you think in the comments below or on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
[button link=”http://betanews.com/2015/10/07/russia-orders-google-to-unbundle-its-apps-on-android/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Betanews[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
Comments are closed.