The European Commission fined Google last July and forced it to pay a total of 4,34 billion Euros for its dominant position in the market for its Android mobile operating system, as they forced smartphones manufacturers to include apps such as Chrome or Google Search. Also, according to the European Commission, the giant Internet company even paid some large mobile phones manufacturers to add these apps as default to their handsets. Now, Google is reportedly charging mobile manufacturers for Google Play Store.
Google is going to start charging a fee to smartphone manufacturers for using Google Play Store
Additionally, the European Commission gave Google 90 days to stop forcing manufacturers to include Google Chrome and Google Search on their mobile phones as mandatory for implementing the Google Play Store. The company also prevented the creation of Android forks, which the company argued would not be as stable as the original versions.
Now, as the period granted by EU ended, Google announced changes to comply with the European Commission’s requirements. The most significant difference is that the giant Internet company will now charge a fee to Android smartphones manufacturers for adding the Google Play Store as a default app.
Google’s decision would come in force on October 29th, across the European Economic Area, which affects the 28 EU members, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. Thus, the prices of smartphones might surge across the EU.
The European Commission paved the way to third-party pre-installed Internet browsers, search engines, and other apps
Thus, manufacturers such as Samsung or Huawei will have to pay for pre-installing the Google Play Store on devices sold across the European Union. In return, these smartphone manufacturers will not have to add Google Search or Google Chrome, although they will be able to do it for free if they want.
However, the European Commission paved the way to third-party pre-installed apps, allowing companies to deal with other Android developers for adding other Internet browsers and search engines than Google’s ones. For example, they could install browsers such as Microsoft Edge, Opera or Firefox, and they could even create their own Android forks with a more significant presence of apps developed by Microsoft, for example.
The smartphones manufacturers can now opt for other search engines, as well, such as Bing or DuckDuckGo. Until now, that was impossible because of the strong restrictions Google implemented for its Android OS.
