Google has agreed to pay Aus$55 million (US$36 million) after admitting to making anti-competitive arrangements with two of Australia’s biggest telecom operators to exclusively pre-install its search engine on Android smartphones.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it initiated legal action in the Federal Court, with both Google Asia Pacific and the regulator jointly submitting the proposed penalty. The court will now determine if the settlement and accompanying orders are “appropriate.”
“Conduct that restricts competition is illegal in Australia because it usually means less choice, higher costs or worse service for consumers,” ACCC chair Gina-Cass Gottlieb said in a statement on Monday.
According to the watchdog, the agreements — in place between December 2019 and March 2021 — ensured that Telstra and Optus exclusively pre-installed Google Search on their Android devices. In exchange, the telecom firms received a portion of the advertising revenue generated.
“Google has admitted in reaching those understandings with each of Telstra and Optus, it was likely to have had the effect of substantially lessening competition,” the commission added.
The tech giant acknowledged the regulator’s findings and expressed relief that the matter had been resolved. “We are committed to providing Android device makers more flexibility to preload browsers and search apps,” a Google spokesperson said, noting that the restrictive clauses had been absent from its contracts “for some time.”
Both Telstra and Optus entered binding agreements with the ACCC last year, pledging not to enter similar deals in the future to set Google Search as the default on Android phones.
