Google is guilty for abusing dominance in some of its services in Russia. Russia's Federal Antimonopoly System (FAS) announced a case against Google's Android OS after Yandex filed a complaint regarding the issue. Google has never received any formal statement regarding the case from FAS yet. However, the company is now looking for better ways on how to remove some services or pre-install them in the future to avoid the same issues.
Digital Trends mentioned that the issue was filed in February 2015 with a complaint of Google's dominance over search engines in Russia. The report said that Russian authority has 10 business days for the verdict, including the company's charges and operation in the country. Google on the other hand, said that it will wait for the ruling to come out before it decides its next steps.
Previously, Russian manufacturers tried to expand Yandex as the default search engine, but the manufacturers were forced by Google to swap, according to Digital Trends. Thus, it resulted of Google as dominantly ruling the search engine in Russia despite of more than 80 percent of Russians who use Yandex. For those who are not familiar, Yandex is the biggest Internet Company in Russia, Crunch Base said.
On the other hand, a spokesman of Yandex told Wall Street Journal, "The FAS decision will help restore competition on the market." Upon the decision, there is a great chance that Google's shares in Russian online industry will decrease. The country's anti-trust ruling body can change the relationship between Google and Yandex firm once the decision is out.
Taking back the history, Google pulled out its engineers in Russia in late 2014, according to the Wall Street Journal. This was due to a mandate of requiring Internet firms to save Russian's personal data within the country's border, the journal added. As such, the law earned political issues like putting a limitation in political speeches and protests online.
Google has no other thing to say but to wait for Russian Authority's decision before providing any formal statement regarding its future plans in the country.
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