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Google Assistant Against Europe: Google Faces Another Possible Antitrust Lawsuit In The European Union

It cannot be said that Google, like other multinationals of its caliber, is surprised by monopoly investigations in different territories. The creators of the most popular search engine on the planet they have already had several trials in their home, the United States, and also in Europe. In the old continent, in fact, they have already had to modify the Android options when choosing the system’s search engine as a result of a sentence against in one of their latest lawsuits.

Now, according to Reuters, the eye of the European Union has settled on its assistant, the Google assistant or Google Assistant, as it is known in both ways. The European authorities are currently determining if Google is forcing manufacturers to install Assistant on your devices as the default voice assistant for Android. And if this is shown to be the case in court, Google could find it (again) expensive.

Europe wants to know if Google forces to install Assistant

Google Assistant

The investigation that Google is being subjected to because of its voice assistant (and in other matters) could cause the company to have to pay a fine of 10% of its annual turnover in Europe. Google is no stranger to these fines because in recent years it has already had to pay more than 8,000 million euros as a result of three lost lawsuits against the European Commission.

As we mentioned in the introduction, the European Commission is currently investigating whether Google has committed a monopoly crime by force Android phone (and other device) manufacturers to set Assistant as default, and unique, in his creations. Well, it not only refers to Google forcing Assistant to be the main one but to prohibiting other assistants from coexisting on the same device.

The European Commission is asking manufacturers to provide any evidence that Google requires them to carry out these procedures. Google, for its part, has indicated that in Android there are more options when choosing voice assistant than in any other mobile platform, but this has not stopped the investigation of the European representatives.

“Manufacturers can choose which voice assistants to install on their devices and users can also choose which assistants to use and install,” Google told Reuters.

In addition to this monopoly investigation focused on Assistant, Reuters also indicates that the European Commission is also investigating whether Google is using the certification process for new devices to ensure this exclusivity as for Assistant or the Google Play Store itself. The European Commission wants to issue the report on its investigation around the first half of 2022 so we will have to be pending.

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