Japan’s Fair Trade Commission is reportedly planning to or has sent a cease-and-desist order to Google LLC’s Japan office, accusing Google of breaching Japan’s antimonopoly laws by forcing smartphone manufacturers to include the Google search app on their smartphones.

The exact status of the order is unclear. The Japan Times said today that the Japanese FTC is planning to issue the order, while Bloomberg, citing sources, said the order has been sent.

Irrespective of the exact status, the order is said to accuse Google of forcing smartphone manufacturers in Japan to sign a contract that compels them to preinstall the Google search app and have it located in a specific position on the device’s screen in order for the same devices to be able to access the Google Play store app.

Google is also alleged to have agreed to pay certain portions of revenue from advertisements on its search platform to the manufacturers if they do not preinstall any other search engine applications on their devices.

The Japanese investigation into Google first became public in October 2023. As reported at the time, the investigation was looking into whether Google had violated the Japanese Antimonopoly Act through the ad revenue share deal and whether forcing manufacturers to prioritize Google services also breached the act.

Google has vowed to fight the accusations, with a spokesperson saying, “We have continued to work closely with the Japanese government to demonstrate how we are supporting the Android ecosystem and expanding user choice in Japan.”

“We will present our arguments in the hearing process,” the spokesperson said before adding that Google was “disappointed” and that the FTC didn’t give enough consideration to the company’s proposed solution. Details of the proposed solution were not shared.

All of the things Google stands accused of are real – Google does require certain apps to be installed to gain access to key Google-owned services such as Google Play. Google also incentivizes Google’s search app to be prioritized – the question is whether both are actually in breach of Japanese law or not.

Google’s dispute with Japan isn’t the company’s first legal rodeo when it comes to antitrust and anticompetitive behavior and it likely won’t be its last.

In a similar case, the European Union took action against Google in 2018, accusing Google of breaching European anti-trust law over the contractual restrictions Google imposes on Android handset makers. That case resulted in Google being fined the equivalent of $4.3 billion, with the fine later upheld in court in 2022.

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