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Google Fined £3.8BN For Abusing Control Of Android

The chances are that if your phone isn’t an Apple product, it probably has Android installed as the operating system. Having several devices with Android installed I must admit that out of the two, I think it is the far more user-friendly application. It seems, however, that Google was exploiting that dominance for their own gain.

In a report via SkyNews, Google has been hit with a £3.8BN fine for its control over the operating system. Specifically, for forcing vendors to provide products with certain applications preinstalled on it.

Pre-Installed Applications

Pre-installed applications can be a nuisance on a product. In fact, when it comes to laptops or smart devices usually one of the first things I do is have a prune of what it has put on. Anyone who has ever bought an HP laptop surely knows what I mean here. It seems, however, that Google, through the use of their application was forcing providers to make some applications as part of the default installation. In others words, no applications? No Android!

The European courts have deemed that this was an unfair requirement of the operating system and (paraphrasing somewhat) was exercised by Google as an unfair market dominance strategy. One of the key indicators of this was the requirement to make Google Search the default search program in web browsing. The EU Competition Commissioner has said: “Google must now bring the conduct effectively to an end within 90 days or face penalty payments of up to 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.”

Google Plan To Appeal

This is clearly a massively hefty fine. As such, it’s no surprise to learn that Google plans to appeal the decision. In fairness, I find this a bit of a tricky one. Google has clearly produced an excellent and popular operating system. If they have, however, utilised this popularity to try and exploit companies who use it, then that is hardly fair. Again though, these companies do ultimately tend to choose to use Android. They could, after all, try making their own operating system. You only have to look at Microsoft and Blackberry though to see how much that can affect your product.

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!