Google is going to be fighting anti-trust legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic, as the FTC and US Justice Department have launched an official investigation in to Google’s business practises with Android, similar to the one European Commission conducted over the a year ago. So what has Google done wrong with Android? Bloomberg’s sources say the investigation is still in its early stages and may not go ahead at all.
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Spokesmen for the FTC and Google declined to comment. Those behind the allegations reportedly included groups representing Microsoft, Expedia and Nokia.
United States regulators are launching an anti-competition probe into Google’s Android operating system, the software that runs most of the world’s smartphones, Bloomberg News said Friday. Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform was third with 2.35 percent. However, if a company dominates the market for a certain product that is in high demand, and basically forces consumers to buy a complementary product, well, that’s a completely different story.
What do you think of the FTC’s investigation?
The FTC and Google have been unavailable for remark. To make an antitrust case out of this situation will be hard. Shelton urged the FTC to “defend its reputation, showing that it followed a thorough process”, according to the e-mail.
It looks like Google isn’t out of the antitrust hot water just yet. A complaint from Yandex triggered the Russian case decided last week.
Google said, “We take invalid traffic very seriously and have invested significantly in the technology and team that keep this out of our systems”.
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Google responded, “We are thankful for Android’s success and we understand that with success comes scrutiny”. Similar complaints have been voiced in the EU, which has led to Google having to present a defence to the European Commission. Regulators are still going through the information, said the people, who requested anonymity because the matter isn’t public. The degree of cooperation between European Union and USA antitrust investigators is not known.
