EU unhappy with Google's Chrome browser and Search set as default Android apps

Google might be on the way to receive a record penalty from the EU this month for forcing OEMs to agree to certain conditions without which the manufacturer is not allowed to run the Google Play Store.

To be more specific, EU’s chief competition regulator is not happy with Google forcing smartphone makers to have Google Chrome as the default web-browser on Android smartphones as well as for making Google Search the default search engine.

We do not have a number set yet, but according to a report by The Washington Post, the punishment from Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s competition chief, is expected to include a fine which could very well shoot up to billions of dollars. As mentioned in the report, the EU believes device makers such as HTC and Samsung are being strongarmed by Google and are forced with a choice of whether to set Google Search as the default search engine and offer Google’s Chrome browser or lose access to Android’s popular app store.

Back in 2017, Google was fined an amount worth 2.7 billion Euros for manipulating shopping search results and was asked to stop offering a financial incentive to OEMs to offer Google Search exclusively back in 2016. So this isn’t the first time Google is being pulled up by the EU for being a bully to OEMs.

Apart from a fine, Google may also be forced to change how they treat preinstalled applications and come up with a simplified way of switching your default search app or browser. Google, however, argues that it needs to recover some money somehow in order to continue to keep the operating system open in the first place.

Jakob Kucharczyk, the vice president for competition and EU regulatory policy for the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a trade group that represents Google said, “Nobody is forced to take Google’s apps, but if you want to have certain apps you have to have the whole suite.”