What the Commission blames Google … and the answers of the American giant

The European Commission has imposed on Google a record fine of 4, 3 billion euros for abuse of dominant position. The EU's grievances concern Android, the mobile operating system developed by the Mountain View company. There are three of them.

All are vigorously repulsed by Sundar Pichai. Google's General Manager explains this in a blog post.

1- Tied Sales

The Commission: "Google engaged in an illegal linked sale of the Google Search app and the Google browser Chromium. Google has made sure that these home products are pre-installed on virtually all Android devices sold in Europe. This has deterred manufacturers from pre-installing competing browsing and search applications and users from downloading third-party solutions. "

Google:" Today, thanks to Android, a clbadic phone comes out with 40 pre-installed apps Installed designed by multiple developers, not just the company to whom you purchased the device. If you prefer other applications – or browsers, or search engines – to pre-installed ones, you can easily disable or remove them, and choose other apps instead, including apps designed by some of the top 1 , 6 million Europeans who make a living as application developers. In fact, a typical Android phone user will install around 50 apps himself. Last year, more than 94 billion apps were downloaded worldwide from our Play store; browsers like Opera Mini and Firefox have been downloaded more than 100 million times, UC Browser over 500 million times. "

2 – Subsidies to Manufacturers

The Commission:" Google has granted significant financial incentives to some of the largest device manufacturers as well as mobile network operators, provided they pre-install Google Search exclusively across their range of Android devices. This has been detrimental to competition because of the significant reduction in their incentives to pre-install competing search applications.

Google: "In 2007, we chose to offer Android to phone manufacturers and mobile operators for free. Of course, there are costs badociated with the development of Android, and Google has invested billions of dollars over the last decade to make Android what it is today. This investment is relevant to us because we can offer phone manufacturers the option of pre-installing a suite of popular Google applications (such as Search, Chrome, Play, Maps and Gmail), some generating revenue for us, and all helping to make the phone "just walk" right out of the box. Phone manufacturers are not required to include our services; and they are also free to pre-install competing applications next to ours. That means we only make money if our apps are installed, and if people choose to use our apps instead of our rivals. "

3 – Hidden" Forks "

The Commission: "Google has prevented device makers from using another version of Android not approved by it (Android forks). In order to be able to pre-install Google's proprietary applications on their devices, including Play Store and Google Search, manufacturers had to commit to not developing or selling any devices running Android forks. "

Google:" The decision neglects the fact that Android phones compete with iOS phones, which 89% of respondents to the Commission's own market investigation confirmed. It also misses the huge choice that Android offers to thousands of phone makers and mobile operators who build and sell Android devices; millions of app developers around the world who built their business with Android; and billions of consumers who can now afford and use the latest Android smartphones. Today, thanks to Android, there are more than 24,000 devices, at all price levels, from over 1,300 different brands, including Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish. The phones manufactured by these companies are all different, but have one thing in common – the ability to run the same applications. This is made possible by simple rules that ensure technical compatibility no matter the size or shape of the device. No phone manufacturer is even obliged to subscribe to these rules – they can use or modify Android in any way they want, as well as Amazon has done with its Fire tablets and TV sticks. "

Sebastien Dumoulin