Europe’s Antitrust Investigation Into Google Could Change The Cellphone Industry

In a long line of European regulators taking aggressive stances against American tech companies, Margrethe Vestager, the European Union's (EU) antitrust chief, is determined to pursue antitrust claims against Google.  In addition to bringing formal charges against Google for allegedly abusing its dominance in web searches, Vestager has opened a formal investigation into Google's practice of "pre-installing its apps and services onto Android smartphones," presumably based on the theory that doing so gives Google's software preferential treatment compared to its competitors.

Pre-installing apps and services onto smartphones is quite commonplace for many other tech companies such as Apple and Microsoft.  The decision to investigate Google, which, according to the New York Times, has an 81 percent market share in operating systems, could affect all other cellphone makers should the investigation lead to the EU bringing formal charges against Google.  Ian Fogg, a cellphone