Russia’s competition watchdog has confirmed that it is investigating Google over allegedly abusing its domination of Android smartphone software on phones made by third party manufacturers.
The watchdog opened the case to assess whether Google has violated Russian anti-monopoly laws after reviewing a complaint from Russia’s biggest search company Yandex. It has complained that Android’s default search is Google and that the mobile software includes a bundle of Google apps.
“We have studied the complaint and decided to open proceedings regarding the violation of anti-monopoly regulation,” a spokeswoman for the Russian federal anti-monopoly service (FAS) watchdog said.
“Device makers are free to install the apps they choose and consumers always have complete control over the apps on their devices,” said a Google spokesperson.
Yandex has a 60% share of the Russian search market, and offers rival services to Google’s YouTube, Maps, Gmail, Chrome Browser and Translate. Three smartphone vendors in Russia – Prestige, Fly and Explay – were blocked from pre-installing Yandex services on their Android devices last year.
