Ricardo Ávila Compass Beyond Android July 19, 2018 | Opinion

If exemplary penalties are at stake, it is impossible to ignore the fine imposed yesterday by the European Union on Google, one of the world's five largest companies of the technology. The penalty for 4.340 million euros (about 5,100 million dollars) is justified by the abuse of the dominant position of the American company vis-à-vis its Android operating system , installed in eight out of ten smart mobile phones on the planet. 19659002] This is not the first time that Brussels is leading its batteries against the company that has created the search engine that has opened the doors to success. A year ago, it penalized 2,400 million euros for having favored its site compared to that of its competitors, when people try to compare the prices of goods or services that they wish to acquire. There are calls going on, so the last word has not been said here, but the competition law experts have taken note of the question.

And that's both in this case and in The game is a business strategy that generates deep questions. Here the syndication is that mobile manufacturers are encouraged to install Android, along with Google and Chrome, the essential requirements when using Google Play, the application store. According to the decision, such practices prevented other companies from innovating and competing.

As you can imagine, the debate is just beginning. Now come the legal arguments and the statements that can reach the diplomatic circles, given the tensions that exist between Washington and the Europeans in the commercial field, among others.

But beyond this specific case, the underlying question is if the big tech – including Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft – have grown too much and are aiming to become monopolies in fact, that deserves to 39, be contained and regulated. In defining the debate, the European Union has already made it clear what it thinks.