EU widens battle with Google

The European Union widened its landmark antitrust battle against Google, accusing the company of abusing its dominance of the smartphone operating system Android.

The new charge sheet will deepen US accusations that EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is disproportionately targeting US technology companies with her antitrust and tax avoidance cases against Apple, Google, Amazon and Qualcomm. The EU said it had come to the “preliminary view” that Google was abusing its dominance of smartphone operating systems to pre-install its own search engine and browser as a default on smartphones. Commissioner Vestager complained that this would stifle competition by closing off the market for smaller, innovative app makers and service providers. Brussels also accused the company of preventing the installation of Google apps on smartphones that used modified versions of Android, called “Android forks”. In an unexpected third charge, Commissioner Vestager said Google was giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.