Google Defends Android Phone Maker Deals, Denies Carrot-and-Stick Tactics

Google mentioned offers with Android telephone makers that landed it a file EUR 4.3-billion (roughly Rs. 37,230 crores) antitrust fantastic boosted competitors and rejected EU fees they had been a carrot-and-stick tactic that stifled rivals.

Google was addressing the second day of a week-long listening to because it tries to get Europe’s second-highest courtroom to annul the fantastic and a European Commission order to make it loosen its search engine grip on Android gadgets.

Lawyers for Google and the EU competitors government clashed over the corporate’s Mobile Application Distribution Agreements (MADAs) that require telephone makers (OEMs) to pre-install the Google Search app and Chrome browser app in return for licensing Google Play totally free.

“This licensing model is what attracted OEMs to the Android platform, and what enabled those OEMs to offer a consistent and high-quality user experience at the lowest possible price,” Google’s lawyer Alfonso Lamadrid advised the General Court.

“People use Google because they choose to, not because they’re forced to,” he mentioned.

Commission lawyer Carlos Urraca Caviedes rejected the argument, calling the offers and different restrictions Google’s carrot-and-stick coverage in direction of telephone makers.

“These helped Google ensured its competitors would not achieve critical mass to challenge its dominance,” he advised the courtroom.

He additionally mentioned such offers had been pointless in view of the market energy of Google, the world’s hottest Internet search engine, and its important variety of customers.

Urraca Caviedes mentioned what Google did “goes beyond what is necessary to develop and maintain the Android platform”.

A verdict might come subsequent yr. The case is T-604/18 Google vs European Commission.

© Thomson Reuters 2021