Google Search and its Play Store App Market are suspected of violating the EU’s Digital Marketing Method (DMA) The European Commission’s executives of the European Commission’s flagship market competitiveness law announced Wednesday that they have been investigating the company for months.
DMA is suitable for a handful of tech giants including Alphabet (Google’s parents). Ever since all aspects of Google’s business have been investigating the EU March 2024Shortly after the regime took effect.
Confirmation of DMA violations can attract up to 10% of sanctions of global annual turnover, so Google’s stake is high. However, it is important to note that the EU has not yet reached a final conclusion on this investigation.
The EU’s preliminary findings on Google are two aspects: one is related to Google Search, and the commission’s executives believe that Google violates the DMA requirement that it should not treat its own services better than its competitors – DMA prohibits self-challenges.
“Letters treat their own services, such as shopping, hotel booking, transportation or financial and sports performance, which is more beneficial in Google search results than similar services provided by third parties,” the EU wrote in a copy of the EU. Press release.
“More specifically, letters provide a more prominent treatment for their services by displaying on top of Google search results or on dedicated spaces, with enhanced visual formatting and filtering mechanisms than others.”
The second discovery involves Google’s mobile app market Play Store, which the EU suspects Google violates DMA by preventing app developers from turning consumers freely to consumers, which are not accessible to other channels that Google cannot control.
“For example, letters technically block certain aspects of the turn, for example, by preventing application developers from turning customers to their chosen quotation and distribution channels,” the committee wrote.
“Although letters can facilitate the initial acquisition of new customers through Google Play, Alphabet charges a high level of fees to developers for every purchase of digital goods and services.
The EU previously targeted unfair turnaround rules and fined €1.84 billion A year ago After a long-term competitive survey of the iOS music streaming market, this market predates DMA.
It also issued preliminary findings for Apple’s App Store to violate DMA regulations Last summertherefore discoveries related to Google’s business follow other DMA enforcement actions Oppose other tech giants. However, in all cases, the EU has not yet made a final decision.
Google did it A series of changes In response to the way DMA is in effect, how it searches and functions in the EU, the Commission believes that this is not far enough.
Aggregation and search sites that compete with Google have already Especially the voice In complaining about changes in the company, trying to avoid DMA from banning self-favorite search giants, designing new ways to use their strengths in new ways to unfairly compete with their products.
Commenting on the EU’s preliminary findings in a statement, EVP Teresa Ribera, the committee for competition affairs, said: “The two preliminary findings we have adopted today are designed to ensure that the alphabet complies with EU rules, while two services for EU businesses and EU search companies are widely used in the EU, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Android Phone.
“In the first case, our preliminary view is that Alphabet is in breach of the Digital Markets Act by favouring its own products on the Google Search results page, which means suppliers and competitors do not benefit from fair ranking practices. In the second case, we take the preliminary view that Alphabet does not effectively allow Android phone users to be told about or directed to cheaper offers from app developers outside the Google Play store.”
Ribera added: “Let me be clear: our main focus is on the adherence culture of the Digital Markets Act, not the digital markets.
We contacted Google to ask if it would make any changes to its business in the EU following the Commission’s findings. The company spokesperson did not participate in our issue, but pointed to Blog Posts It released aligned with the results of the EU’s announcement of preliminary violation investigations.
In a blog post, the company introduces DMA, claiming that the EU is forcing its changes to harm consumers and businesses and “hinder innovation.”
“The committee’s findings require us to make changes to how we display certain types of search results, which will make it harder for people to find what they are looking for and reduce traffic to European businesses,” said Oliver Bethell, senior director of Google, in the post.
Bessel also warned that EU executors are pushing for changes to Google’s Android Play store that will expose Europeans to “malware and fraud in bad applications.”
“[I]f We cannot protect our users from scams or malicious links that drive our users beyond them Safe playback environmentand then the committee effectively forces us to choose between closed models and unsafe models. ” Bessel believes.
“Equally, if we can’t charge a reasonable fee to support the continued growth of Android and the Play Services we offer, we will not be able to invest in an open platform that powers billions of phones around the world and not only helps those who can spend €1,000 on the latest premium models.”
Bessel added: “We will continue to interact with the Commission and follow its rules.
As far as what happens next, Google will have the opportunity to parse the EU’s findings in detail and respond. Therefore, the results of the investigation remain to be seen – if the EU finally confirms that technology giants do not comply with the rules, it could be a non-compliance decision (and a big fine). Likewise, the committee may be lingered by the materials presented by Google.
Or, indeed Political pressure From the Atlantic, this is brought about by the rule of law in Europe.
