While a lot of us might think of Google as one of the nicer companies doing business in today’s day and age, that’s clearly not the opinion shared by the European Union Commission. Having gone after Google aggressively for not only the way the Internet giant handles their Search business, but also Android itself, Google does not appear to be well thought of by European Governments. As such, The Californian firm was handed formal Antitrust complaints from the European Union back in 2015, with the Android claims coming in the Spring of 2016. While Google was originally supposed to respond to these complaints by July 27th, they were given an extension until September 7th. That was yesterday, and much to Google’s pleasure, they’ve been given yet another extension by the European Union.
Now, the European Union have set Google a “last deadline” of September 20th to present their response to the EU commission’s antitrust claims against Android, and it’s likely that the Internet Giant will find it in them to reply this time around. Historically, these cases have resulted in huge fines, which for Google, could be as much as $7.4 Billion, or roughly 10% of their global income should the EU not be happy with their response. The European Union has levelled claims of creating a monopoly and giving networks across the region little choice but to play by Google’s rules. The way in which Google requires manufacturers to put Google services – such as Search, Gmail and the Play Store – front and center on any new Android phone are chief among the complaints, and as there is realistically no competitive alternative to the Play Store, the EU argue that Google has created a monopoly and continue to fuel it by giving manufacturers little choice but to go in with them.
Google has previously responded to these comments publicly before, but it’s their response to the European Union that will decide whether or not Google will have to pay a fine, change the way they do things across the Atlantic, or both. This is the second extension that the EU has given Google, and if they can’t come up with a response before this current deadline of September 20th, then it’s likely that things will only get worse for Google.