“Alphabet offered on Friday to loosen its agreements with Apple to make Google the default search engine on new devices in response to a US court ruling that it illegally dominates online search.”, — write: epravda.com.ua
Alphabet offered on Friday to loosen its agreements with Apple to make Google the default search engine on new devices in response to a US court ruling that it illegally dominates online search. This is reported by Reuters. The proposal is much narrower than the government’s effort to force Google to sell its Chrome browser, which Google called a radical attempt to intrude into the search market. Google urged U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington to be cautious about what the company must do to restore competition after he ruled that the company has an illegal monopoly on online search and related advertising. Courts are cautioning against applying antitrust measures that stifle innovation, Google said in court filings.Advertisement: This is especially true “in an environment where outstanding innovations in artificial intelligence are rapidly changing the way people interact with many online products and services, including including search engines,” Google said. While Google plans to appeal the decision at the end of the case, the company says the next round of “legal remedies” should focus on its distribution agreements with browser developers, mobile device manufacturers and wireless carriers. The judge found that the deals give Google a “significant, mostly invisible advantage over its competitors” and result in most devices in the US coming pre-installed with Google’s search engine.Advertisement: The deals are difficult to get out of, the judge said, especially for manufacturers Android devices that must agree to install Google Search in order to access the Google Play Store on their devices. To fix this, Google could make them non-exclusive, and for Android phone makers to separate their Play Store from Chrome and search, the company’s proposal said.