EU Officially Accuses Google Of Monopoly Abuse

Google has officially been accused of abusing its position as the dominant search engine in Europe.

After several hints that this might happen soon, of which we reported earlier, the European Commission has sent the official Statement of Objections to the company.

The Statement is a result of years of investigations by EU authorities, which have looked into Google’s practices concerning privacy and monopoly.

Google has now been accused of abusing its dominant position, promoting its own services through the engine, at the expense of competing companies including Microsoft.

The company has ten weeks to reply to the Statement.

The Commission and relevant authorities have also launched investigations towards Android and the way the mobile operating system promotes Google services, apps and search results, Neowin writes.

As we reported earlier today, Google already has a defence in place.

In the search market, it will use old rivals Yahoo and Bing as showings of competitiveness, and new search from Amazon, eBay and travel sites in Germany, France and the UK.

The claim is that due to customers going directly to Amazon for shopping rather than Google search, it counts as a competitor in the market.

For Android, it’s a different case. It will go for the open-source angle, claiming it has lowered prices, opened up developer opportunities for £5 billion in revenue payouts and a vibrant ecosystem of products.

It will also fight the claim it preloads Google apps on Android devices, by showing the example of Samsung preloading Facebook, Microsoft and other apps bought through partnerships.