Google hit with €4.3bn Android fine from EU

Google has been fined a record €4.34bn over Android.

The European Commission said the firm had used the mobile operating systemto illegally "cement its dominant position in general internet search".

The firm's parent Alphabet has been given 90 days to change its business practices or face further penalties of up to 5% of its average daily turnover.

However, it has said it plans to appeal.

Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai was pre-briefed about the decision by Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager on Tuesday.

At a press conference in Brussels the watchdog said consumers needed choice and suggested the ruling could lead manufactures to sell smart devices using different versions of the Android operating system to Google's, such as Amazon's Fire OS.

"This will change the marketplace," she said.

Google at a press conference in Brussels

Google's parent Alphabet can easily afford the fine - its cash reserves totalled nearly $103bn at the end of March.

However, it believes the punishment is unjustified.

"Android has created more choice for everyone, not less," said a spokesman.

"A vibrant ecosystem, rapid innovation and lower prices are classic hallmarks of robust competition."

Ms Vestager previously fined Google €2.4bn over a separate probe into its shopping comparison service - a ruling the tech firm is in the process of appealing against.

In addition, her team has a third investigation underway into Google's advert-placing business AdSense.

Ms Vestager alleges that there are three ways that Google has acted illegally:

• it required Android handset and tablet manufacturers to preinstall the Google Search app and its own web browser Chrome as a condition for allowing them to offer access to its Play app store

• it made payments to large manufacturers and mobile network operators that agreed to exclusively pre-install the Google Search app on their devices

• it prevented manufacturers from selling any smart devices powered by alternative "forked" versions of Android by threatening to refuse them permission to pre-install its apps Ms Vestager acknowledged that Google's version of Android does not prevent device owners downloading alternative web browsers or using other search engines.

But she said that only 1% of users downloaded a competing search app and 10% a different browser.

"Once you have it, it is working, very few are curious enough to look for another search app or browser," she said.

The Competition Commissioner said that Google carried out its abuse at a time when the mobile internet was growing quickly, helping it ensure its advertisingsupported search service repeated the success it had already found on desktop computers.

She cannot turn the clock back, but said the size of the fine had been based on the firm's search- related earnings from Android devices in Europe since 2011.

She has, however, said the firm must now stop all of the practices outlined above and refrain from any measures with a similar goal.

Russia may give one example of how this could be achieved.

After similar complaints by the country's regulator, Google now offers Android users a choice between Google, Yandex and Mail.ru as the default search engine the first time they use the Chrome browser.

Yandex in particular has benefited from this.

Since the change in June 2017, the Moscow-based firm has seen its share of mobile search rise from about 34% to 46%, according to Statcounter.

The European Commission first began scrutinising Android in April 2015, after a complaint by Fairsearch – a trade group that originally included Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle among its members.