Google previously settled an FTC antitrust case around its online advertising practices that favored the company’s offerings over competitors. The agency has yet to reach out to Google, a necessary step in a formal investigation, according to a person familiar with the company.
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The new FTC probe focuses on whether or not Google is telling Android handset makers which Google apps they need to present on their telephones, and the way and the place they’re displayed, the supply stated.
The European Union investigation into Android licensing is ongoing.
In April 2015, Google responded to the European Commission’s inquiry into its Android business, saying, “Android has helped create more choice and innovation on mobile than ever before”. Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform was third with 2.35 percent. However, First pointed out that there’s probably no violation if consumers can easily go to other manufacturers to avoid the bundled product.
The FTC will have to decide whether Android’s 59 percent share of the United States mobile operating system market counts as a monopoly.
Earlier this week, the FT reported research findings apparently showing that Google charges advertisers for views on its video platform, YouTube, even when it thinks that the “viewer” is a robot.
Since then, the FTC worked out an agreement with the Justice Department to investigate the claims, the people involved in the inquiry said. That decision was made in the past few months, according to one of them. So please, Mr FTC, can you stop it pre-loading Gmail onto everything, would seem to be the question being asked. Android is the company’s key to mobile, today’s dominant channel for searching, socializing, and just about every other popular consumer pastime. If the FTC doesn’t find sufficient evidence of such practices, an investigation could be ruled out before it begins.
Google can certainly argue that they are ensuring “total user convenience” by providing a complete Google eco-system to the users but it is undeniable that the organization is benefiting in unimaginable proportions from the lovely alignment of its products. The sentiment turned in some cases to disillusionment earlier this year, after the FTC inadvertently released a confidential document as part of a public records request.
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Google is no stranger to anticompetitive investigations as numerous other countries of the world beside Europe; India, South Korea, and Mexico in particular, have also launched internal investigations.
