Google to appeal €4.34bn EU antitrust fine

Least surprising news of the year so far

Google has, as expected, launched an appeal against the largest ever antitrust fine levied by the EU Competition Commission for abusing the dominance of the Android operating system on mobile devices.

Google spokesman Al Verney confirmed to the AFP newswire yesterday that "we have now filed our appeal of the European Commission's Android decision at the General Court of the European Union".

The terms of the July decision also included a demand to "put an effective end" to its conduct "within 90 days or face penalty payments" of up to five per cent of its average daily turnover.

The €4.34 billion fine is twice the EU's previous record fine for antitrust behaviour - €2.4 billion, which was also levied against Google in 2017. In that case, for using its dominant search service to unfairly promote its Google Shopping service above that of rivals.

Google acquired Android when it purchased Android Inc in July 2005. Based on the Linux kernel, but using a Java virtual machine to run applications, it took Google a number of years to refine the operating system before the release of the first Apple iPhone in 2007 pointed the way forward for smartphones.

While Android is open source, Google pushes its operating system on mobile device makers and telecoms operators with its popular Play Store, Google Maps, Chrome web browser and other applications. Without these utilities, device makers wouldn't be able to sell their hardware in significant quantities.

Google, meanwhile, makes money from Android by selling advertising that appears on search results and in Maps, as well as from the 30 per cent cut it takes from sales of downloads via the Play Store, including its cut of micro-transactions within apps.

Back in July, Google CEO Sunder Pichai rejected the argument of the European Commission that Google was abusing its dominance. Pichai pointed out that the only significant rival in mobile operating systems, Apple's iOS, also comes bundled with similar apps.

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