Google loses European antitrust appeal

The "General Court" (General Court), the second largest court in Europe, on Wednesday upheld the EU's antitrust decision on Alphabet's Google using its Android mobile operating system to suppress competitors but will set a record The fine was reduced from 4.34 billion euros to 4.125 billion euros (about 28.751 billion yuan).

"The European General Court essentially affirmed the Commission's decision that Google imposed unlawful restrictions on Android mobile device manufacturers and mobile network operators in order to consolidate its search engine dominance," the court said. "To better reflect the seriousness and duration of the infringement, the European General Court found it appropriate to impose a fine of 4.125 billion euros on Google, for reasons that differ in certain respects from the Commission’s.”

The case is T-604/18 Google v. the European Commission, which dates back to 2018. The European Commission said in its decision at the time that Google used the Android system to pass information to large manufacturers and mobile networks. Carrier payments and restrictions to cement its dominance in general Internet searches. Google said it behaved like countless other businesses, that such payments and agreements help keep Android free, and criticized the EU's decision for being out of touch with the economic realities of the mobile software platform.