Google are facing legal action in Russia after their search rivals accused them of giving unfair prominence to their own services. Russia’s largest search engine Yandex said that owners of Android devices were being forced to set Google as their default search service. Yandex say that anyone running an Android device has no choice other than to use Google as a default if they are to pre-install the Play store.
Google haven’t responded to the claims, but the complaint doesn’t seem to have been filed with the Russian Federal Antimonopoly service as yet. It’s thought that Google will say that manufacturers are permitted to install other services if they don’t pre-load other Google software. Yandex blame Google for its share of the search market being relatively modest.
Microsoft have complained to the European Commission about Google and Android restrictions in the past. Anti-trust regulators in Europe are currently involved in a separate investigation into Google’s search and advertising departments. Three companies contacts Yandex recently to complain that they weren’t able to install Yandex services on Android devices due to Google restrictions.
Manufacturers have complained about being unable to install Google Mobile Services apps like Play, YouTube and Drive without setting Google as an automatic search service. The European Parliament recently voted to break-up Google.
