The Japan Fair Trade Commission plans to issue a cease-and-desist order against Google over what it says is a violation of the antimonopoly law by forcing smartphone manufacturers to include the company¡¯s search app on their smartphones.
Such an order would be the first to be issued in the country against any of a group of U.S. global technology companies collectively referred to as GAFA ¡ª Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon ¡ª before Facebook changed its name to Meta.
The commission is accusing Google of forcing smartphone manufacturers in Japan to sign a contract in which they must preinstall its Google search app and have it located in a specific position on the devices¡¯ screens in order for them to be able to access the Google Play app store.
Google is also alleged to have agreed to pay certain portions of the revenue from advertisements on its search platform to the manufacturers if they do not preinstall any other search engine applications on their devices.
The fair trade commission has been investigating the company since October last year.
Google has been notified about possible penalties, Jiji Press reported, and the commission plans to formally issue the cease-and-desist order after conducting a response hearing with the company.
The commission is thought to have found Google in breach of the antimonopoly law by forcing manufacturers into transactions with restrictive conditions since 2020, and, as a result, unfairly restricting competition in the Japanese market.
If the order is issued, the technology giant would be forced to dissolve the contracts made with the manufacturers and commit to preventing a recurrence of similar violations.
The development comes at a time when Google holds major dominance among search engines in Japan.
According to data from GlobalStats, Google accounted for around 81% of searches conducted on mobile devices in the country last month; Yahoo, which accounted for 11.8%, placed second.
The cease-and-desist order looks to level out the monopoly by removing alleged unfair practices.
In recent years, governments across the world ¡ª notably in the U.S. and Europe ¡ª have also been cracking down on similar breaches of antimonopoly laws by major companies including Google for having built illegal monopolies in the market.
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