An assistant takes a picture using a Google Pixel 9 smartphone that lasts the CP+ fair in Yokohama, Japan, on February 27, 2025.
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The Japan Ferdber Commission (JFTC) issued on Tuesday a cessation and withdrawal order against Google For unfair commercial practices regarding search services on Android devices, a movement that aligns with similar repressions in companies in the United Kingdom and the USA.
In a statement, the commission said that the Giant of American technology violated Japan’s antimonopolistic law by demanding android device manufacturers to prioritize their own search applications and services through license agreements.
While Google develops the Android operating system, to separate manufacturing companies such as Samsung and Lenovo Produce hand android products, such as smartphones and tablets. Therefore, the license agreements are necessary to grant the permission of the thesis manufacturers to pre -install Google applications, including its Play Store store, on devices.
However, JFTC said Google also used licenses to demand manufacturers to pre -install and present a search for Google and Chrome prominently on devices, with at least six of these agreements in force with Android manufacturers such as or December 2024.
The Commission added that the company required that manufacturers exclude rival search services as a condition of its advertising income exchange model.
According to the Antimonopoolio Law of Japan, companies are prohibited from carrying out trade in restrictive terms that unfairly import the commercial activities of transactions partners.
JFTC first published the beginning of his probe on Google on October 23, 2023, and in April 2024, he approved a Google commitment plan that addressed some of his anti -competitive conerns.
The cessation and withdrawal order demonstrates a harder position by the Japanese government, as well as its first action against an American technological giant.
The measure also occurs in the middle of a trend of anti -competitive actions against Google worldwide. According to JFTC, he coordinated his probe with other guard dogs of competition abroad that had experience in Google’s research.
In a historical case last year, an American federal judge ruled that Google had an illegal monopoly in the search market, saying that they are exclusive search arrangements in Android and Apple Iphone had help to consolidate its domain in space.
Meanwhile, the Great Britain competition control agency opened an investigation into Google’s search services in January after the country’s implementation of new competition rules.
JFTC’s cessation and withdrawal orders that Google stop ordering that their own services are installed and presented prominently on smartphones.
In addition, the company must relax its restrictive conditions for the distribution of advertising income, allowing manufacturers to choose from a variety of options.
Google has also requested that LegS requests a designated third party to inform the JFTC on compliance with the termination of cessation and withdrawal over the next five years.