Google is facing another antitrust investigation, as Russian search company Yandex has asked the country’s Federal Anti-Monopoly Service to take a look at Google’s practices – specifically relating to Android.
Yandex is upset by Google’s bundling of its search engine, as well as other apps in with its Android operating system – which comes equipped on 86 percent of smartphones sold in Russia.
Yandex has issued a statement on the request:
Google’s practices relating to Android have been the subject of investigations and lawsuits in many jurisdictions around the world. Google is the owner of Android, the dominant global mobile operating system. Many believe that Android is an open platform. In reality, manufacturers of Android-powered devices are locked into the proprietary Google Play application store and closed APIs. In order to install Google Play on their devices, device manufacturers are required to preinstall the entire suite of Google GMS services, and set Google as the default search. In addition to that, device manufacturers are increasingly prohibited from installing any services from Google’s competitors on their devices.
A Yandex spokesperson elaborated on that, saying,
“We believe that device manufacturers should have a choice as to which search provider to set as the default or which services to have preinstalled on the device. Google should not prevent manufacturers from preinstalling competitor apps. This is why we are talking about the need to unbundle Google’s Android operating system from Google Search and its other end-user services.”
If these claims sounds familiar, it’s because Google is already facing this sort of challenge elsewhere. The European Union has been after Google on this front for years, with its focus on Android ramping up recently. Recently, the European Parliament approved a breakup of the company – but that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. The European Commission are the regulators with that authority, and it’s still debating the issue.
Read more: Should Google Be Broken Up?
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