The Commission has announced that it has opened a formal investigation against Google regarding its Android mobile operating system, and that it has sent Google a statement of objections on comparison shopping services.
First, the Commission intends to investigate whether Google’s conduct in relation to its Android mobile operating system and applications and services for smartphones and tablets has breached EU competition rules, namely Articles 101 (anticompetitive agreements) and 102 (abuse of a dominant position) TFEU. In particular, the investigation will examine the following allegations:
Second, the Commission has sent a statement of objections to Google alleging that in its general search results pages Google treats more favourably its own comparison shopping service (“Google Shopping”) and its predecessor service (“Google Product Search”) compared to rival comparison shopping services. Google’s conduct may therefore artificially divert traffic from rival comparison shopping services and hinder their ability to compete, to the detriment of consumers, as well as stifling innovation. The Commission’s key preliminary conclusions are as follows:
- whether Google has illegally hindered the development and market access of rival mobile applications or services by requiring or incentivising smartphone and tablet manufacturers to exclusively pre-install Google’s own applications or services;
- whether Google has prevented smartphone and tablet manufacturers wishing to install Google’s applications and services on some of their Android devices from developing and marketing modified and potentially competing versions of Android on other devices, thereby illegally hindering the development and market access of rival mobile operating systems and mobile applications or services;
- whether Google has illegally hindered the development and market access of rival applications and services by tying or bundling certain Google applications and services distributed on Android devices with other Google applications, services and/or application programming interfaces of Google.
- Google systematically positions and prominently displays its comparison shopping service in its general search results pages, irrespective of its merits.
- Google does not apply to its own comparison shopping service the system of penalties, which it applies to other comparison shopping services on the basis of defined parameters, and which can lead to the lowering of the rank in which they appear in Google’s general search results pages.
- As a result of Google’s systematic favouring of its subsequent comparison shopping services (“Google Product Search” and “Google Shopping”), both experienced higher rates of growth, to the detriment of rival comparison shopping services.
- Google’s conduct has a negative impact on consumers and innovation. Users do not necessarily see the most relevant comparison shopping results in response to their queries. Rivals’ incentives to innovate are lowered as they know that however good their product, they will not benefit from the same prominence as Google’s product.
