The European Court of Justice has dismissed Google’s appeal against a €4.1 billion antitrust fine over its handling of Android.
Google had appealed the ruling in the European Union’s court system, but the European Court of Justice dismissed the company’s appeal.
“The Court of Justice dismisses the appeal brought by Google and Alphabet against that judgment of the General Court, thereby confirming the penalty imposed on them, as revised by the General Court, for their anticompetitive practices relating to the Android operating system,” the ECJ said
Back in 2022, The European Court of Justice’s General Court mostly confirmed a 2018 decision by the EU’s executive Commission to slap Google with a fine of more than 4 billion euros.
Europe’s second-highest court largely upheld the ruling but reduced the fine from €4.34bn to €4.125bn.
In its original decision, the European Commission said Google’s practices restrict competition and reduce choices for consumers.
It determined that Google broke EU rules by requiring smartphone makers to take a bundle of Google apps if they wanted any at all and prevented them from selling devices with altered versions of Android.
The bundle contained 11 apps, including YouTube, Maps and Gmail, but regulators focused on the three that had the biggest market share: Google Search, Chrome and the company’s Play Store for apps.
“Android provides more choice for everyone and supports thousands of businesses. This judgment fails to recognise our significant investment to ensure Android remains open, interoperable and free,” a Google spokesperson said.
“In any event, we adapted our agreements to comply with the initial decision back in 2018 and we remain focused on continued innovation and openness for our users, partners and developers,”.
Google had made some changes after the original ruling to address the issues, such as giving European Android users a choice of browser and search app and charging device-makers to pre-install its apps.
