The European Union imposes a fine on Google for Android



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Brussels.- On Wednesday, the European Commission fined Google 4,342 million euros for the use of its operating system for Android phones and tablets so to consolidate the dominant position of its search engine.

Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, said at a press conference that "Google has used illegal practices to share its dominant position in the Internet search" and warned that the The company had to end the practice within 90 days or implement new fines.

The penalty, which could have reached 10% of the worldwide business turnover of the Alphabet (parent company of Google), and be the highest because of the abuse of position dominant, after the 2,244 million euros imposed in 2017 to promote your "Google Shoping" price comparison in your search engine.

90-day term

Android, is an operating system used by 80% of the world's mobile phones and is the equivalent of iOS for Iphone from Apple, is in the collimator of the European Commission for several years.

"Google's search engine is its flagship product, and every year Google generates more than $ 95 billion in advertising revenue" in Google search, says curator, for whom "the lion's share of this figure" Business they come from the boom of mobile devices such as "smartphones" and tablets. "

Brussels accuses Google of forcing mobile device manufacturers, such as South Korean Samsung or the Chinese Huawei, to preinstall the Google search app and its Chrome browser to focus the license of its store Play Store applications.

The company would also have paid big manufacturers and operators mobile networks to pre-install exclusively Google Search on their devices and would have limited the development of new versions of the open source ("open source") Android according to the AFP

In April 2016, the The European Commission has presented its Statement of Objections to Google, but the Mountain View company has failed to dispel its concerns. Brussels also gives Wednesday a period of 90 days to correct these practices deemed "illegal".

If he is not respected, the community leader could impose coercive fines of up to 5% of the daily average daily business number of Alphabet that rose in 2017 to 110,900 million dollars (94,700 million euros).

As part of its "Google Shopping" price comparison, the company introduced in September a series of solutions that Brussels continues to pursue. ;to study. The Californian group also appealed in September 2017 against the European Commission's decision in the European courts, in a situation that took two years depending on the complexity of the case.

In addition to Shopping and Android, the community executive takes a third blow to Google for abuse of dominant position, especially for its AdSense advertising system (80% of the market in Europe). This investigation remains open and could result in a new fine.

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