Fairsearch Europe, a group consisting of Nokia, Microsoft and Oracle, recently reproached Google for using its Android platform to strategically market its own apps and has launched a formal complaint about the same to Europe’s anti-trust regulators. Whilst referring to Android’s share of the market today, Thomas Vinje, counsel for Fairsearch Europe, said that Google tends to deceive other brands by creating a conducive situation for its main applications in 70% of the world’s smartphones. This can be seen especially when phone manufacturers are contractually bound to place Google applications like YouTube on the mobile device’s homepage if they choose to use Android.
This is not the first time that Google has been accused of playing around with anti-trust law. The European Commission previously investigated the manner in which Google Search operated in November 2010. The question of the matter was whether Google had unsporting intentions while using its market position to give undue preference to its own applications and programmes like Google Maps and whether this could be considered to conform to antitrust laws in Europe. Google spokesperson Al Verney attempted to defuse the situation by promising that the company would continue to work in co-operation with this commission. The proposed changes by the EC are still under negotiation as the Commission and Google have been at loggerheads over the issue since then.
Google may be in for some respite as Joaquin Almunia, EU’s antitrust chief, refuted suggestions that Google would have to change its basic formula, which is used to match the most ideal links to the searched keywords. However, any proposed changes by Google would have to qualify a review by their competitors through a series of questions. Almunia quashed ideas of protecting the competition and simply stated that these moves are made to protect newly established search engines rather than already established rivals.
Google has received a tougher review from the EC compared to the Federal Trade Commission. In a statement delivered in January, the FTC decided that Google had conformed to antitrust laws and ended a 19-month enquiry in Google’s favour. With the on-going investigation, it remains to be seen if Google indeed gets strong-armed by the Commission or if it can continue unhindered. The EU has a long history of strong antitrust moves against global giants like Microsoft in the past, which have led to hefty fines.
