We all know that Google offers some of its default apps on its Android smartphones which include its Chrome search browser, Youtube, and Gmail. But the European Union (EU) has slapped an anti-trust penalty of $5 billion on Google for indulging in such practices which is almost equivalent to a yearly budget contributed by the Netherlands to EU.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU Competition Commissioner announced the penalty at Brussels, yesterday and said that more such penalties will have to be faced by Google if it doesn’t pay-up in the next 90 days or 3 months time.
The reason to penalize Google is simple- because the internet juggernaut tried to generate revenues by freezing out rivals on its Android Smartphone operating system in order to gain the advantage of advertising through its apps.
It’s said that the decision was taken by the EU watchdog after a 3-year investigation which revealed that the Mountain View-based company was trying to use the fan following of its Android OS to marginalize rivals.
EU also penalized Google with the said heavy fine for indulging in fraudulent marketing practices such as forcing major phone manufacturers including South Korea’s Samsung and China’s Huawei to pre-install its search engine and Google Chrome browser.
By doing so, Google is able to advertise its other online services to its users-whereas the rivals are not permitted to do so.
Vestager said that during the investigation taken up by EU, Google was found indulging in such illegal practices since 2011. And so if it doesn’t pay up in time, then the Alphabet Inc subsidiary could be forced to pay 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover of its parent company each day until it decides to legally fully cooperate.
Note- On July 19th, 2018 Trump reacted to the EU ban on Google by tweeting ” they have truly taken advantage of the US, but not for long”.
