The European Commission is behind this.
When you get a new Android phone, you probably don’t think too much about the Google Search widget on your home screen, Chrome being set as the default browser, or all of Google’s big apps pre-installed out of the box. However, the European Commission certainly has and is planning on fining Google billions of dollars for these actions.
According to a report this week from The Wall Street Journal, it’s expected that the Commission will fine Google more than $2.88 billion USD as it allegedly “abused the dominance of its Android operating system for mobile phones.”
As WSJ reports:
The EU has alleged that Google strong-arms phone makers into pre-installing Google Search and the company’s Chrome internet browser on their mobile devices by bundling them with its popular Play store for Android applications, and at times paying them to pre-install Google exclusively.
Furthermore, the European Union is targeting Google for restricting OEMs from marketing devices with Android if those companies also promote devices with unofficial versions/forks of the OS. However, Google says that it retains the right to do this as an effort to keep official versions of Android safe.
Google has yet to respond to this most recent allegation, but in the past, the company’s tended to deny these sort of threats from the EU.
What do you think? Should Google be charged for its actions?
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