Andre Yoskowitz
20 Jun 2014 21:56
Search giant Google is now facing another antitrust complaint in the EU, this time from mobile app marketplace (app store) company Aptoide.
The Portuguese company claims that Google has abused its market leading position in the smartphone market to steer consumers away from any app store that isn't their own Google Play Store.
"We are struggling to grow, even to survive, in the face of Google systematically setting up obstacles for users to install third-party app stores in the Android platform and blocking competition in their Google Play store," said Paulo Trezentos, Aptoide's co-founder and CEO.
Trezentos says the app store has six million unique monthly users and that the company will team together with other independent app stores to forge a common front" against Google.
The European Commission did not confirm they had received the complaint, which Aptoide filed last week.
Google is already facing a large antitrust complaint from Nokia, Microsoft and 13 other companies which had accused the search giant of using Android to promote Google's own apps.
Source:
WSJ