Google is to be hit by another record fine

EU antitrust watchdogs take another punch 

The EU is contemplating another record fine against Google.

This one is over how it pays and limits mobile phone providers who use the search company’s Android mobile operating system and app store.

A decision could be expected by the end of the year if the opinion of a team of experts, set up by the EU to obtain a second opinion, agrees with the decisions reached by the team that has worked on the case.

The report quoted Richard Windsor, an independent financial analyst, as saying that the Android fine was likely to hurt Google more than the search fine or the verdict in a third EU probe over AdSense.

“If Google was forced to unbundle Google Play from its other Digital Life services, handset makers and operators would be free to set whatever they like by default potentially triggering a decline in the usage of Google’s services,” he said.

In April the European Commission said Google had breached EU antitrust rules by requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google’s Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to licensing certain Google proprietary apps.

This prevented manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android code.

It also gave financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.