Russia’s anti-monopoly agency said on Monday Google Inc was abusing its market position in the country and would face penalties, in a case launched by local competitor Yandex. The fee will write to Google and Yandex inside 10 days about really helpful actions, in response to Interfax.
The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service found Goofgle guilty of “abusing its dominant market position” in relation to how it bundles apps with its Android platform, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“We haven’t yet received the ruling”, a Google spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. Google has prevented smartphone makers from pre-installing Yandex’s services on Android phones and has shut it out of the Play Store.
Google faces more antitrust scrutiny in Europe. “And also we work OEMs, but as I said now, possibility to install our app specifically search app and browser is limited because of Google’s restrictions imposed on OEMs”.
“We believe the FAS decision will serve to restore competition on the market”, the company said. Yandex’s stock surged following news of the decision – it’s now up around 9%.
The probe was first opened in February after Yandex filed a complaint that accused Google of unfair practices.
Walker said that “product search is robustly competitive” and the EC has failed “to consider the impact of major shopping services like Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), who are the largest players in this space”.
Meanwhile, Google is still fighting antitrust charges made by the European Union.
Yandex has dominated the Russian market since its founding in 2000.