EU to press anti-trust charges against Google over Android

A is for Anti-trust: European Commission to take on Google's parent company Alphabet

European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is expected to announce on Wednesday the formal filing of anti-trust charges against Google's owners Alphabet over the bundling of apps with the Android mobile operating system.

It follows a series of "requests for information" sent out by the Commission just last week with 24-hour deadlines for responses. Sources cited today by major newswires indicate that the Commission will issue a Statement of Objections on Wednesday, formally commencing action after a year of deliberation.

It will mark the second anti-trust action by the European Commission against the internet giant following a case started in 2010, in which the Commission accused Google of promoting its own shopping price-comparison service unfairly over rival offerings in search results.

That case remains ongoing after it was supposedly settled in 2014 and then subsequently re-opened by the Commission as a result of claims that it had been too lenient.

The latest anti-trust case launched in Europe against Google focuses on the free, Linux-based mobile operating system Android, which the Commission claims breaks EU rules by requiring handset makers to pre-install all of Google's suite of mobile apps if they use Android.

Google claims that because Android is open source no-one is required to comply with its demands - although they are barred from bundling the popular Play app store with their distributions if they don't. They will also not be supported by Google. The company made as much as $15bn in 2015 from the Android eco-system, according to estimates by investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Google faced similar anti-trust action against it in Russia when the local dominant internet search company Yandex complained about the required bundling of apps with Android. The competition authorities in that case were quicker to respond, barring the requirement for the pre-installation of Google apps with Android - a ruling that Google is contesting.

Vestager inherited the EU anti-trust case portfolio against Google when she was appointed Competition Commissioner in October 2014.

Vestager is also a key contributor to the European Commission's strategy on the so-called Digital Single Market, which is intended to help the EU develop its own rivals to Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter and other big-name technology companies, as well as promoting the benefits of the internet and cloud computing to established companies in Europe.

The Digital Single Market covers digital services, as well as physical goods, and encompasses parcel delivery rates, uniform telecoms and copyright rules. While half of EU citizens purchase goods and services online, only about 15 per cent do so cross-border, according to Henrik Ballebye Okholm, a partner at Copenhagen Economics.

But EU-wide changes to VAT law, in which even the smallest online traders have to register and pay VAT direct to the country of purchasers, has made cross-border trading even more bureaucratic for online start-ups in the EU. Vesteger, however, is keen to make it illegal for a vendor in one country to refuse the custom of a prospective purchaser in another, according to Ballebye Okholm.