Google has a pretty shady past when it comes to playing fair with its competitors, but the search giant has been forced to change its ways recently. Google is now abiding by the EU’s anti-trust policy that gives EU Android customers more options for web browsing and searches.
Google will now allow these users to choose a preferred web browser and search bar. Prior to this, competitors would have to pay hefty fees to get their app installed into a Google device right out of the box. This made it difficult for people to adopt other browsers or search options outside of Google.
In Google’s latest blog post, the company highlights the changes they are making to the policy for EU consumers in order to comply with the EU anti-trust commission.
Google also states in their blog post that they will continue to work on their products to avoid further trouble with the EU Commission which has fined the company 3 times in the last 3 years for violating anti-trust regulations.
Google still has a ways to go before it’s fully compliant with the commission’s anti-trust policies. Hopefully, this is the first step towards market competitors penetrating the OS.
2019 is definitely looking to be a mixed year for Google as they have just unveiled Stadia, their first venture into the gaming space, but still face controversy in the EU.
