The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) dismissed Google's lawsuit seeking to overturn the penalty surcharge related to its Android operating system (OS). The legal battle that continued for eight years after the European Commission's 2018 sanction ended in a loss for Google.
The ECJ said on the 2nd (local time) that it would dismiss the appeal filed by Google and its parent company Alphabet against the General Court of the European Union's ruling. As a result, the penalty surcharge against Google for abusing its dominant market position related to the Android OS has been confirmed.
Earlier, at first instance, Google succeeded in lowering the penalty surcharge from €4.343 billion (about 7.67 trillion won) to €4.125 billion (about 7.29 trillion won), but failed to overturn the decision itself. This amount is the largest penalty surcharge the EU has imposed to date.
In 2018, the European Commission imposed a penalty surcharge, saying Google excluded competitors by requiring smartphone makers to preinstall its search engine and Chrome browser as a condition for installing the Google Play app store. During the trial, Google argued that Android users were not forced to use Google apps and could download other apps with a single tap, but the court did not accept the claim.
This is not the first time the EU has sanctioned Google. In 2017, it imposed €2.4 billion (about 4.2 trillion won) for favoring Google Shopping in its own search engine, and in 2019 it imposed a €1.5 billion (about 2.6 trillion won) penalty surcharge for attaching ads while providing search functions to third-party websites.
In Sep. last year, it additionally imposed a €2.95 billion (about 5.2 trillion won) penalty surcharge, saying Google abused its market power to favor its own ad exchange, AdX, in the brokering process between websites and advertisers.