The initial allegation filed against Google in 2018 claimed that the firm exploited its market dominance by compelling Android phone makers to limit how their products were marketed. Manufacturers were required to agree not to sell phones running unapproved versions of Android (“forks”), as well as to pre-install Google’s Search and Chrome applications alongside the company’s app store, the Play Store. As part of a revenue-sharing agreement, Google also paid phone makers and mobile carriers to only install Google search on handsets.
Google perceived the emergence of smartphones as an existential danger to its (then-desktop-based) search business, according to the Commission’s study. As a result, the internet titan coerced phone manufacturers into putting its search engine front and center on their handsets.
