The EU's highest court rejects Google's appeal, upholds €4.1 billion antitrust fine
On Thursday, July 2, the EU's top judicial body rejected the appeal filed by American tech giant Google against the record-breaking antitrust penalty imposed by the European Union, upholding the European Commission's ruling that Google abused its dominant market position within the Android mobile ecosystem, resulting in a fine of €4.1 billion.
The Court of Justice of the European Union, based in Luxembourg, announced on Thursday that it had dismissed Google and its parent company Alphabet’s appeal, confirming that Google Search was improperly leveraging its dominant market position within the Android operating system, thereby maintaining the EU's penalty decision.
A Google spokesperson told AFP that the verdict "did not take into account the significant investments Google has made to ensure the Android system remains open, interoperable, and free." The spokesperson also stated that Google had already adjusted relevant agreements in accordance with the 2018 preliminary ruling and remains committed to driving innovation and openness for the benefit of users, partners, and developers.
Ricardo Cardoso, spokesperson for the European Commission’s competition affairs, said the Commission has taken note of the court’s judgment and will conduct a detailed analysis of its content.
Google had previously appealed to the EU Court of Justice seeking to annul the 2018 penalty decision issued by the European Commission.
The General Court of the EU upheld the fine in its first-instance ruling in September 2022. This marked the largest antitrust fine ever issued by the European Commission to date. However, the court reduced the original fine amount from €4.3 billion to €4.1 billion.
As the EU’s highest judicial authority, the Court of Justice dismissed all arguments put forward by Google—neither the substantive nor procedural grounds were accepted.
The European Commission determined that Google required manufacturers of smartphones and tablets using the Android operating system to pre-install Google Search and Chrome browser, thereby excluding competitors, which justified the imposition of the fine.
The Commission argued that Google exploited its dominant position through the widespread adoption of the Android platform. According to the latest data from market research firm StatCounter, Android still holds approximately 70% of the global mobile device market share.
Google contended that the EU wrongly overlooked Apple Inc., a major competitor. Apple similarly prioritizes its own services, such as Safari browser, on iPhones and maintains a dominant position in the U.S. smartphone market.
Google also asserted that users can easily download competing applications with just one click and are not forced to use Google’s products.
Agustín Reyna, Secretary General of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), welcomed the ruling, stating that this decision sends “a strong signal: companies holding dominant market positions must not use their power to block competitors’ access to the market or restrict consumer choice.”
This case has long been one of the most representative legal disputes between Google and the EU.
Last September, the European Commission fined Google nearly €3 billion for anti-competitive behavior in the online advertising market. In January this year, the Commission launched two new investigations concerning competition issues related to the Android operating system and search engines.
The EU aims to compel Google to further open up the Android mobile operating system, enabling competitors’ artificial intelligence assistants to more easily integrate and compete with Google’s own Gemini assistant; at the same time, the EU plans to require Google to share Google Search data with competitors.
Google firmly opposes these investigations and warns that implementing such measures would undermine the security and data protection capabilities of its systems, ultimately harming users.
Source: rfi
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1869666445623371/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) alone.