Google May Be Fined More Than $2.7 Billion For Android Violations

Google was recently penalized a record sum of $2.7 billion by the European Union for its illicit activities on dominating the search engine market by promoting Google’s price comparison service in its search results and thus denying the consumers of their genuine choice of purchase.

With not even a month passed since this humongous fine, Google may likely be fined again by the European Union and this time the fine amount is expected to be much larger than the previous sum of $2.7 Billion.

The reason for this is that Google has been asking Android smartphone manufacturers to include the apps Google Chrome and Google search as the default apps on their phones if they want access to other apps of Google.

Google is also said to be barring other phone manufacturers from using the rival versions of the Android on their phones. Google is further accused of paying the device manufacturers to ask them to include only the Google search as the default search app on their phones.

While the fine being the primary concern for Google, another major concern would be to unbundle its default apps like the Google Chrome and search from the Google Play services so that they would no longer be set as default in phones manufactured by other companies which mean they could set their app of choice as default.

Google’s Tough Decision

With Android being one of the largest smartphone operating systems in the world and with over billions of devices which come pre-installed with Google’s apps like the Google Chrome, Google Search, Google Play Music and other apps, Google is already enjoying billions of downloads and a phenomenal market share regarding mobile devices alone.

Also, one of the main reasons why Google initially acquired Android from Open Alliance is to compete in the smartphone market and also to reach out its products to millions of ever growing mobile users.

So, it would be a tough decision for Google to unbundle its apps from Android as the default ones, especially because of there a lot of alternative apps out there and with smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, LG and Xiaomi developing their own set of browser apps and search assistants.

So, if smartphone manufacturers were allowed set the apps of their choice as defaults in their phones, Google may face difficulty in sustaining in its own game, if the decision on this review by the European Union, which is expected to be revealed by the end of the year, turns out against Google.

(Source)

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