According to reports, the European Commission previously imposed a record fine of US$5 billion against Google in the United States on the grounds that the Android operating system has monopolistic behavior. Google appealed against the ruling, and in a recent court hearing, Google lawyers stated that billions of users around the world use Google’s Internet services because of the best service experience, rather than Google’s efforts to maintain a competitive edge in the market. Cooperative transactions.
In 2018, the European Commission issued a fine of 4.34 billion euros (equivalent to 5 billion US dollars) on Google. The agency pointed out that Google abuses the competitive advantage of the Android operating system to combat rivals and further consolidates its leading position in the field of general web search.
The European Commission accused Google conducted a series of unfair trade, including for third-party smartphone manufacturers pre-installed Google search, GooglePlay App Store, Chrome browser and other software, Google also agreed to require that the phone manufacturers to disable the Android system (Non-Google official) customized version.
Google filed a judicial appeal against the European Commission’s ruling. A few days ago in the European General Court (the second-highest court in the EU), Google lawyer Meredith Pickford told the judge that every day, billions of Internet users around the world use Google as their main search Tools, this is not because Google has abused its dominant position, but because Google search is the best in the industry.
Pickford said that some of Google’s external cooperation is not intended to hinder fair competition in the market, but just to maintain Google’s own competitiveness. Pickford said that Internet companies can work hard and compete fairly, and consumers are not fools. If Microsoft’s Bing search or other search engines are better than Google, they will use these search engines.
The lawyer said that if you are satisfied with the past success laurels and no longer maintain market competitiveness, no outstanding company can continue to be successful. Nicholas Khan, a lawyer representing the European Commission, said that the transaction between Google and smartphone manufacturers is actually for their own benefit.
Khan urged the judge to maintain the European Commission’s antitrust ruling and fines. Khan said that in the Internet market, before the competition has started, Google has already given itself the crown. What they did is worthy of the high fines imposed by the European Commission. In this appeal case, it is not yet known when the court will make a decision.
