The Japan Fair Trade Commission is investigating whether Google LLC violated antitrust laws by forcing smartphone makers to give preferential treatment to its search and other apps at the expense of competitors.
Osamu Tanabe, Director-General of the Japan Fair Trade Commission’s Investigation Department, said at a press conference, “Even if the quality of the service has improved significantly, a situation may have been artificially created in which consumers cannot easily use alternative search services.” . October 23rd.
According to the FTC, one of the issues concerns agreements Google has with some manufacturers of smartphones that use the company’s Android OS.
The deal requires apps like Google Search and Google Chrome to be installed and prominently placed on phones before shipping.
Additionally, the FTC said another agreement states that Google will share a portion of its revenue with smartphone makers, provided they don’t introduce competing search services.
The FTC suspects that Google restricted the business of its competitors and partners through these agreements.
The antitrust watchdog said it would consider administrative penalties if violations of the law are confirmed.
“I don’t think the widespread use of Google products is the problem,” Tanabe said. “However, if influential companies are allowed to illegally consolidate their market power, innovation is likely to be hampered and consumers may be disadvantaged in the medium to long term.”
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Google has a 79% share of Japan’s smartphone search engine market. Yahoo is in second place by a wide margin, with a 20% share.
Google’s Japanese subsidiary announced on October 23 that it will work with the government and industry stakeholders on this issue.
Google also said it provides options for users to customize their Android smartphones according to their needs.
The FTC said it will accept information from third parties related to its investigation into Google.
The committee’s antitrust investigation resulted in improvements in Apple’s payment system and Amazon.com’s dealings with suppliers.
Foreign regulators have already taken action against Google.
The European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, has concluded that Google forced Android smartphone makers to install its search app by default, costing them more than 4 billion euros (635 billion yen) in 2018. imposed the maximum fine.
In the United States, the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google began in September. The complaint alleges that Google paid Apple and other companies to preset its search engine as the default on smartphones, violating antitrust laws.
(This article was written by Masayuki Takada and Naoko Murai.)