Google has appealed EU’s $5 billion antitrust fine

In July of this year, the EU imposed a record-scale anti-monopoly fine on Google’s violation of the anti-monopoly law, amounting to 4.34 billion euros ($5 billion).

The EU believes that Google has imposed illegal restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators since 2011, strengthening its monopoly in the search market. For example, Android devices set Google search as the default search engine, pre-installed a considerable portion of their software, and banned manufacturers from selling mobile devices equipped with competitors based on Android open source code.

The EU requires Google to change this behaviour within 90 days, otherwise, its parent company Alphabet will face a fine of up to 5% of the global average daily turnover.

This week, Google appealed the ruling nearly 90 days later. Google said, “We have now filed our appeal of the EC’s Android decision at the General Court of the EU.”

Google mentioned the idea put forward by CEO Sundar Pichai on the day of the EU’s decision in July. The main one is that Android gives customers more choices than to reduce options. This complicated case may take several years to process before the judge makes a ruling.

Via: businessinsider