As I mentioned in an earlier story this week about the rumour of an antitrust action, this is very reminiscent of the Microsoft antitrust bundling convictions.

As I mentioned in an earlier story this week about the rumour of an antitrust action, this is very reminiscent of the Microsoft antitrust bundling convictions. This seems to be the crux from the EU commission fact-sheet [0]: "Android is an open-source system, meaning that it can be freely used and developed by anyone to create a modified mobile operating system (a so-called "Android fork"). The open-source model of course does not raise competition concerns – on the contrary. The Commission's concerns relate to the conditions for use of Google's proprietary apps and services on Android devices, which are not open source. In particular, if a manufacturer wishes to pre-install Google proprietary apps, including Google Play Store and Google Search, on any of its devices, Google requires it to enter into an "Anti-Fragmentation Agreement" that commits it not to sell devices running on Android forks. EU antitrust rules allow dominant companies to put in place restrictions only when they are objectively justified. However, to date, Google has not been able to show this in relation to the restrictions in the "Anti-Fragmentation Agreements". The documents in the case are at [1]. [0] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-1484_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-1484_en.htm [1] http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cfm?proc_code=1_40099 http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cf...