Google seem to be under a lot of pressure at the moment from EU regulators. Only last week it was reported how EU Regulators were trying hard to make a case that Google should be split up into smaller companies. This was seen as an attempt to quell the dominance seen by American tech companies in the industry. The motion in question was proposing to separate Google Search from Google’s other services and products. Now, to make matters worse for Google, another (separate) investigation by the EU is also starting to heat up.
The other ongoing battle is to do with the bundling of Google Mobile Services (GMS) within android. This basically refers to the Google suite of products like Maps, YouTube and the Play Store coming bundled in all versions of Android. The big crux of the argument (from the EU’s) perspective is that the bundling of such apps makes it difficult for third party developers to create Google-free apps. Instead, the bundling forcing the same developers to develop apps compatible with GMS, which in a sense goes against the open nature ethos of android. As a result it now is being reported the EU authorities investigating Google have requested Yandex to provide their input on the situation.
For those that don’t know, Yandex is a Russian search company similar to Google. More importantly, being a search company is not the only similarity between Yandex and Google. Yandex also provides their own Mobile Services suite of apps as a direct alternative to Google’s GMS. You would expect that Russian developers would go towards Yandex for their MS apps instead of Googles. But this is where the argument gets interesting. According to the EU (or at least what they claim) Google have actively dissuaded Russian developers from using Yandex MS in favor of their own. This is a prime example of the type of control and monopoly the EU are accusing Google of. As a result, Yandex have been called in to offer their perspective on Google’s behavior and today this was confirmed by Yandex. So what do you think of the situation? Are the EU right to pursue Google if they are forcing third party developers to use their GMS when developing for Android? let us know your thoughts on the matter.