MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 23 (UPI) -- For the second time in a few years, Google is facing allegations of unfairly limiting competition.
The last case came from the European Commission, which claimed the search engine was directing search results to its own services, and the new case comes out of Russia.
The Guardian reports that Yandex, Russia's most popular search engine, believes Google's Android phone software prevents the company from having its software pre-installed. Android phones only come with the Google search engine pre-installed, and Yandex's attempts to get phone companies to put its search engine on phones have been unsuccessful. Russian phone companies Prestige, Fly and Explay were not able to pre-install the search engine because of the terms of use in Android software.
Android makes up 81.2 percent of the global cell phone market share.
"Device makers are free to install the apps they choose and consumers always have complete control over the apps on their devices," said a Google spokesperson.
"We have studied the complaint and decided to open proceedings regarding the violation of anti-monopoly regulation," a spokeswoman for the Russian federal anti-monopoly service (FAS) watchdog said.
