Standing in a dazzling gold floral dress on July 18, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager declared that Google had engaged in illegal practices to cement its dominant market position in internet search. "First, Google has required manufacturers to preinstall the Google search and browser apps running on the Android mobile operating system. Manufacturers had to do this if they wanted to sell devices with the Google app store. Second, Google paid manufacturers to make sure that only the Google search app was preinstalled on such devices. Third, Google has obstructed competing operating systems; these could have provided a platform for rival search engines to gain traffic." Google was given 90 days to pay $5bn, the biggest fine in the EU Competition Commission’s history, or be fined 5% of its daily revenue, $15.2m, every day thereafter. This is the second record-breaking slap on the wrist for Google by the commission in little over a year. In June 2017 it was fined €2.4bn bec...

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