The day has come, today the General Court of the European Union decided definitively on the occasion of the European Commission’s complaint against Google. The events date back to 2018, when the tech giant signed alleged illegal contracts with Android manufacturers that completely disregarded the rules set by European antitrust law. A case that remains on standby to this day, and for which Google is ultimately required to pay a fine of 4,125 million euros imposed in the process.

What does the European Commission accuse you of?

It’s not the first time the EC has taken aim at Google – and it won’t be the last. The commission assures that the company demanded Android device manufacturers install Chrome search engine and browser. And all this in exchange for Play Store credentials. In addition, he paid them not to install a search engine other than Google Search and to control the market themselves.

For this purpose, the Commission prepared a series of tests based on three types of contracts that Google would sign a contract with smartphone manufacturers and telecom operators almost a decade ago. These included the Mobile Application Distribution Agreements (MADA), where smartphone manufacturers had to pre-install Google search and browser apps to obtain Play Store licenses, the Anti-Fragmentation Agreement (AFA), where manufacturers had to refrain from using alternative versions of the Android operating system; and Revenue Sharing Agreements (RSAs), where Google would share its search revenue with the carriers and manufacturers of said mobiles,

What does Google mean

This problem has been rooted since 2018, although Google has already been sentenced to pay the said millionaire fine. However, from San Francisco, they claimed that these statements are absolutely false, that the European Commission is lying without fully reliable evidence and They asked the General Court of the European Union for a second opinion. Google also argued that installing competing apps could be done without any problems, attacking Apple in the process. It accuses him of imposing his services, in this case Safari on the iPhone.

This time the wind blew in favor of the European Commission. It should be remembered that the recent times have not been good for their legal claims. Brussels recently lost against two other technologies where fines originally imposed on Qualcomm and Intel were overturned.