Google has been convicted of violating European antitrust laws again

The European Commission handed down a record fine of €4.3 billion to Alphabet corporation for violating anti-monopoly legislation. Representatives of the European Commission said that Google, which is part of...

The European Commission handed down a record fine of €4.3 billion to Alphabet corporation for violating anti-monopoly legislation.

Representatives of the European Commission said that Google, which is part of the Alphabet holding, used the domination of the Android platform in the smartphone market in order to promote its search engine. The investigation found that companies that manufacture smartphones received additional funding from Alphabet for installing Google's search engine and the Chrome browser as a default.

This is not the first fine for the IT giant by the European Commission. In 2017 Google paid €2.4 billion, also for using its position in the search engine market. The company's lawyers did not manage to appeal the decision of the commission.

Google now has 90 days in which the company must either pay a fine or appeal the decision in court. Otherwise, the size of the fine will increase.

Despite the fact that €4.3 billion is a record fine for this area of legislation, the company will be able to recover their losses in a couple of weeks. For example, last year Google earned €25 billion in the European digital advertising market alone.

This time the European Commission not only fined the company but also ordered Google to lift restrictions for Android smartphone manufacturers to allow them to install other programs, including alternative search engines.

Alphabet is the second largest company in the world ($842 billion), second only to Apple, whose market capitalization recently exceeded $900 billion.