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The EU is on the verge of inflicting Wednesday Google a record fine of 4.3 billion euros, according to a source close, this time in the Android antitrust case, a decision that may further deteriorate its relations with the United States
A press conference by European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager is scheduled in Brussels for an antitrust case at 11:00 GMT, the European Commission announced. The European executive did not give additional details, but several sources told AFP that it was the Android case.
According to a source close to the case, the financial sanction intended to punish the American company for abusing the dominant position of its operating system for smartphone, Android, in order to establish the supremacy of its own applications – in especially its online search service – is expected to reach € 4.3 billion.
It would spray the latest record, already held by Google, condemned by the European Commission on June 27, 2017, to pay 2.42 billion euros. euros for abusing its dominant position in online research by promoting its price comparison "Google Shopping" at the expense of competing services.
The amount of the fine is decided at the last moment and can theoretically reach, according to European competition rules, up to 10% of the total turnover of the company, which amounted to Alphabet, parent company Google, to 110.9 billion dollars in 2017 (94.7 billion euros).
This new sanction against the US giant comes in a particularly tense context between the EU and the United States, with which the subjects of friction do not miss as on the NATO or the trade.
Next Wednesday, in a week to the day, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, must also go to Washington to try to defuse the trade dispute between the EU and US President Donald Trump , ready to tax imports of European cars in his country.
Already Microsoft
The Android antitrust case – operating system used for 80% of the devices in Europe and in the world, which is the equivalent of the iOS for the Apple iPhone – has been in the sights of the European Commission for several years.
In its complaints addressed to Google on April 20, 2016, the European Commission accused the American first to oblige smartphone makers, like the Korean Samsung or the Chinese Huawei, to pre-install "Google Search" and set it as the default or exclusive search service on the vast majority of devices under Android sold in Europe.
Secondly, the Commission accused Google of preventing manufacturers from selling smartphones running under competing operating systems and thirdly of having provided financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on the condition that they pre-install exclusive Google Search on their devices.
After more than two years of discussions, the Mountain View firm failed to convince the European executive. The record fine should be accompanied by an injunction to change behavior within 90 days.
In the case antitrust Shopping, Google had proposed remedies in September, still under review by the European Commission.
The Californian group had also filed in September 2017 an appeal against the fine of Brussels, before the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), which should not fail to do either in the Android folder.
Given the complexity of the cases, it would take about two years before a court decision.
In addition to Shopping and Android, the European Commission has a third fire on Google: its advertising practices.
Since July 14, 2016, it has accused it of abusing its dominant position with its advertising agency AdSense (80% of the European market) by artificially limiting the possibility for third-party websites to display contextual advertising from competitors. Here too, a fine may be imposed.
The first company in the Sillicon Valley to receive a huge fine in an antitrust case from the European Commission is Microsoft.
In 2004, the computer group US had received a financial penalty of 497 million euros for refusing to provide full technical documentation to its competitors so that they can design software fully compatible with the Windows operating system.
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