EU Plans may Fine Google for Anti-Competitive Android Practices read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/1104-eu-plans-may-fine-google-for-anti-competitive-android-practices

EU antitrust regulators plan to order Alphabet's Google to stop paying financial incentives to Smartphone makers to pre-install Google Search exclusively on their devices and warned the company of a large fine.

Google received a copy in April in which the European Commission accused it of using its dominant Android mobile operating system to shut out rivals.

The EU competition enforcer in its charge sheet said it planned to tell the U.S. technology giant to halt payments or discounts to mobile phone manufacturers in return for pre-installing Google's Play Store with Google Search.

The Commission's investigation followed a complaint by FairSearch, a lobby group supported by companies that want to ensure they are not disadvantaged by search engine market dominance, in March 2013.

Google could face a large fine because the anti-competitive practices, which started from January 2011, are still ongoing.

The penalty could be based on revenue generated from AdWords clicks by European users, Google Search product queries, Play Store apps purchases and AdMob's in-app advertisements.

The Commission, which has also charged Google of favoring its own shopping service over those of rivals, could also fine it in that case. Google may have to rank rival comparison shopping services in the same way as its own services.

The Commission said, it would decide at a later stage whether to let Google charge competitors for displaying their services prominently, with the amount corresponding to Google's operating cost or a nominal amount based on the lowest reserve price for AdWords which is currently 0.01 euro per click.