Google in the crosshairs of the EU: native apps on Android could cost the company 7.45 billion

The European antitrust sanction could soon be Google for pushing third phone manufacturers and carriers to install Chrome, Gmail, Drive, Hangouts and other proprietary applications into Android devices. He spoke about the EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager within a conference held in recent days, saying that the European Commission is "watching closely" the work of Google and agreements undertaken with other companies.

In the same period last year, the Commission accused Google of abusing its dominant market position in the own search engine positioning favoring the owners services, and not those of the competition. In the same period it was undertaken separate survey regarding Android, and specifically to determine whether Google has taken advantage of its leading position in the mobile operating systems.

The big companies should not try to protect themselves by holding the innovations of others: "This is why we are looking closely at the Google contracts with smartphone manufacturers and operators that use the Android operating system," said Vestager during the conference. "Our fear is that by requiring phone makers and operators in the native installation of a set of Google apps, rather than let them decide what to upload, Google could eliminate one of the main ways in which new apps can reach consumers" .

Through ongoing investigations will determine if Google is guilty against charges of anti-competitive behavior. If so, the company could be fined up to a maximum of 10% of turnover during the previous year. In Google's case it comes to a figure of 74.5 billion dollars, with a potential fine that could total close to selling 7.5 billion.