India fines Google for unautorized third-party apps in Google Play; Google has yet to respond
Google will be forced to pay a fine of about $161.9 million
As a result of its practice of forcing specific apps to be loaded on Android phones, Google has come under heavy scrutiny, and now India has fined the company millions of dollars.
According to TechCrunch, India’s competition watchdog is looking into whether Google holds a dominating position in five industries: app stores, non-OS specific mobile web browsers, non-licensable smartphone operating systems, and online video hosting. Since then, the regulator has come to the conclusion that Google enjoys a dominant position in each of these markets, but it has taken issue with Google’s practice of mandating that specific app come pre-installed on Android devices as well as other demands it places on Android partners.
The Indian regulator claims in a press release that the installation of Google’s full app store and the demand that these apps appear on the home screen “amounts to the imposition of unfair restrictions on the device manufacturers.” Additionally, the regulator claims that Google’s requirements have “limited the capacity and incentive of device manufacturers to develop and market devices operating on alternative versions of Android.”
A $161.9 million fine will be imposed on Google and refrain from providing any incentives to smartphone manufacturers to only have Google Search on their products.
According to the court decision, Google must “not refuse access” to Play Services to Android forks (severely modified versions of the OS) and be prohibited from paying OEMs to stop selling devices that use a forked version of Android. Last but not least, the judgement requires Google to allow the distribution of third-party app stores via the Play Store and that sideloading is not prohibited in “any manner.”
Google has yet to respond to this decision and order, but it is anticipated that the corporation will contest several of the other demands made in the order, including the one that forbids the distribution of third-party app stores through the Play Store.
Of course, regulators from all around the world have imposed further fines and demands on Google in recent years. Similar concerns led to a €4.1 billion fine upheld by the EU, while South Korea penalized Google with a lower payment for restricting the use of heavy Android skins. Additionally, the US is suing Google for antitrust violations related to Android and the Play Store. In general, Google disagrees with many of the decisions, and in one instance, it criticized the EU for not adopting similar measures against Apple, which locks its products.
