Germany’s antitrust watchdog on Wednesday criticised Google’s in-car infotainment system, saying the bundling of providers inside it may give the US tech large an unfair benefit over rivals.
The Federal Cartel Workplace stated it had warned Google’s dad or mum firm Alphabet in a preliminary authorized evaluation that it “intends to ban” varied “anti-competitive practices” linked to Google Automative Providers (GAS).
The GAS platform, licensed to car producers, contains Google Maps, a model of the Google Play app retailer and the Google voice assistant.
“Specifically, we take a crucial view of Google providing its providers for infotainment methods as a bundle solely, as this reduces its rivals’ possibilities to promote their competing providers as particular person providers,” Andreas Mundt, head of the Federal Cartel Workplace, stated in an announcement.
Google now has the chance to reply to the allegations, it added.
The watchdog final yr already opened an investigation into Google Maps, to find out whether or not restrictions on combining the platform with third-party map providers had been harming competitors.
That probe remains to be ongoing.
The Federal Cartel Workplace final yr classed Alphabet as an organization of “paramount significance for competitors throughout markets”, permitting for nearer monitoring for attainable abuse of its market place.
Fellow tech behemoths Amazon, Apple and Meta have additionally been positioned underneath elevated scrutiny, made attainable by new German laws.
The German Competitors Act, which got here into power in 2021, offers the Federal Cartel Workplace better powers to clamp down on anti-competitive behaviour by tech giants.
