14 DAY TRIAL // The European Commission is reportedly going to once more investigate Google, focusing this time on the company’s Android contracts with phone makers.
According to The Register, which quotes unnamed industry sources, the inquiry that was being suggested a few weeks back is actually going to take place. Preliminary letters have been sent for over a month now as the European Commission seeks to find out if there’s anything in Google’s contracts that can be considered as “restrictive.”
The antitrust team seems to be particularly interested in the “lockout” clause in the company’s Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA). This particular issue has been mentioned countless times so far, since it forces manufacturers to make Google phones that use services from other companies. This means that they shouldn’t come pre-installed with alternative app stores, other Maps services, or music player.
Just recently, there’s been a big debate about the fact that Google doesn’t allow people to install other app stores on their phones without directly downloading their APKs. This is a safety measure that Google has set in order to avoid becoming responsible for the apps that some people may install from these markets, which have not previously been checked by Google for malware and other types of issues.
Android is the most used mobile operating system in the world, with a huge market share, including in the European Union. Joaquin Almunia, the competition Commissioner, confirmed that the Android probe was the most advanced investigation the European Union has conducted conducting into Google.
“The most advanced investigation relates to Google's Android operating system, which is currently the main operating system in smart mobile devices in Europe with a market share of around 70-80 per cent. Google's position in this market is important as mobile devices will likely soon become more prominent than desktop computers to access the Internet,” he wrote in a letter sent to fellow Commissioners.
Google has been known to demand from phone manufacturers that their products be installed first and foremost on the device. Instead, they are asked to integrate a stack called Google Mobile Services which allows devices to access Google’s own services. The companies also need to pass a strict compatibility test Google created to be able to use the Android logo after paying a fee to a certified test center.
It may be some time yet before the European Commission publicly admits the new antitrust investigations, because they usually thoroughly look into the situation to see if there really is a problem or not.