Japanese Authorities Investigate Google for Possible Antitrust Law Violations

JAKARTA - Japan's antitrust competition supervisory authority announced on  Monday, October 23,  that it had initiated an investigation into Google for possible violations of antitrust law in its web search service. The move follows similar actions taken by authorities in Europe and other major economies.

The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) said that it is investigating whether Google violated Japan's Antimonopoly Law by returning part of its revenue to Android smartphone makers on the condition that they do not install a competing search engine.

They are also scrutinizing Google's practice of requiring Android phone manufacturers to preinstall the "Google Search" and "Google Chrome" apps with the "Google Play" app.

"There is a suspicion that through these steps, Google excludes the business activities of competitors and limits the business activities of its business partners in the search services market," a JFTC official said in a press conference.

The official said the problem was not that Google's services were widely used, but more about fair competition.

"We initiated this investigation to determine whether a situation where other competing search engine services were difficult to recognize as users' choice, regardless of the extent of improvements that had been made, was artificially created," the JFTC said, as quoted by Reuters.

The decision follows similar investigations by antitrust regulators in the European Union, the United States and other countries.