EU puts pressure on Google
The EU Commission is investigating whether Google is abusing its dominant market position with its Android mobile operating system. Is Brussels putting unfair pressure on the Internet giant or defending consumer interests?
Brussels blocking successful companies
With its antitrust proceedings against companies like Google the EU shows how hostile it is to innovation, the web portal TheJournal.ie believes:
“Their response to foreign companies that gain a huge slice of the market simply by being better than everyone else is to first try to spend millions to compete with them; and then to launch countless antitrust investigations against them. ... We need to be able to do business with the Europeans through a free trade association, such as we had before the EEC morphed into the monster it is today. We do not need to be a deeply integrated part of a federal state in decline that lacks the imagination to try to compete and innovate.”
The consumers' mouthpiece
De Volkskrant, on the other hand, praises the antitrust proceedings arguing that the EU is protecting consumer interests:
“It is good news that the Danish EU Competition Commissioner, Margarethe Vestager, has opened an investigation against Google, alleging that it is exploiting its dominant position on the market. Android is an open platform that anyone can adapt for their own purposes and for which any manufacturer can offer its own apps. Vestager suspects Google of exerting undue pressure on manufacturers and therefore putting consumers at a disadvantage. Moreover, because of its virtual monopoly Google is blocking innovations on the mobile devices market. The European Commission already managed to discipline Internet giant Microsoft using mega fines. The case against Google is fresh confirmation that the EU is indispensable for defending consumer interests.”