As already announced a few days ago, the Supreme Court of India rejected Google’s petition to block an antitrust order and gave the company behind Android one more week to comply with new instructions from the Competition Commission of India (ICC).
And it is that, the ICC fined the company $161 million, accusing it of unfair trade practices. With this as a basis, Google has announced a number of changes to Android mobiles in India following this episode.
In a nutshell, Google has been ordered not to require its Play Store licenses to force the installation of Google apps like Chrome and YouTube, among others. The agency has also ordered that allows you to delete all your apps from the phones Indians and that offers smartphone users the possibility of change search engine if they wish.
Implementing these changes will be a “complex process,” the company said in a blog post, requiring “significant work on our part and, in many cases, extensive efforts by partners, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and developers”.
This ruling against Google and its Android smartphones will not only affect India
The ICC first accused Google of signing “unilateral agreements” with phone manufacturers to ensure dominance of their applications over the rest. As they explain, this logically completely eliminated competition and it gave Google access to consumer data and highly profitable advertising opportunities.
Now, the big problem we find is that India is Google’s largest market by users. The company has invested more than $10 billion in this country in recent years and has amassed more than 500 million monthly active users in India. And it is that, it is calculated that about 97% of smartphones of the country currently work with Android.
That’s why Google warned earlier this month that if the Indian body’s decision were successful, devices would become more expensive in the South Asian market and would increase the number Applications uncontrolled, which would pose a threat to the security of the entire world.
logically many Indian companies competing with Google services have welcomed the Supreme Court decision. Rohan Verma, CEO of MapmyIndia, was elated by the development, noting that Google’s requirement of phone vendors to pre-install Google Maps had hurt his business.
