| Economy
Within a year, the European Commission comes on the second red signal to Google. Brussels presented Wednesday to communication objections that will be sent to the US giant.
The process should continue in time, but may give rise to a fine equivalent to ten percent of the volume of turnover. The Spanish El País estimates that can reach 6,500 million euros.
The preliminary opinion accuses Google of abusing its dominant position in violation of Community rules on competition. The Commission believes that Google “has implemented a strategy for mobile” to “preserve and strengthen its dominant position” with regard to research on the internet.
The critics refer to devices sold with the operating system Android which, according to Community executive, account for over 80 percent of sales in Europe .
in particular, Brussels accuses Google to force mobile phone manufacturers already sell them with the Google Search pre-installed and set to default search engine. The Berlaymont building committee also accused the company of giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile operators to preinstall exclusive Google Search search engine.
“We believe that with this attitude, Google deprives consumers of a wider range of choices of mobile applications and services and curtail innovation,” argues the European Competition Commissioner.
free system?
The third complaint relates to freedom so that developers can modify their own Android system and sell their own version. Once the system is shown as being open source, this can be freely developed by developers to create a named Android Fork.
This is a system which is based on Android, but this is modified. The result of the modification, the more likely it is that the system to be better for the user. At the outset, developers could then sell its own version.
The European Commission accuses Google to stop selling devices with modified versions of Android if manufacturers wish to preinstall unique applications of the brand in mobile phone . At issue is, for example, the availability of giant Google app store on your phone. – The Google Play Store
The conduct of Google prevented “their access to intelligent and innovative mobile devices, based on alternative versions potentially higher, Android operating system,” accuses Brussels.
the FairSearch organization, one of those responsible for the prosecution and that groups companies like Nokia and the TripAdvisor, believes that Google launched Android c omo a free source project, but which is now trying to prevent the development of alternative versions that you can compete.
“Android is good for competition”
The US giant now has 12 weeks to reply to Brussels charges. Google may also request a hearing to present their explanations.
In a first reaction, the company wished to “work with the European Commission to demonstrate that Android is good for competition and for consumers.” By accusation, FairSearch welcomes the European initiative and believes this is a “decisive step to end abusive practices” of Google.
This is the second case brought by the European Commission to the US multinational. A year ago, the Community executive accused of abuse of a dominant position in the company with regard to internet searches. Brussels believes that Google focused its comparison shopping website in search results made via the search engine.
However, the European institutions still investigating the possibility that the company is to give priority to YouTube videos (he also owned by Google) in the searches made on the internet. They are also studying possible tax engineering schemes to reduce taxes paid in Europe.
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