Google loses fight against record €4.1 billion EU antitrust fine

BRUSSELS: Alphabet’s Google on Thursday lost its fight against a record fine imposed by EU antitrust regulators eight years ago for using its Android mobile operating system to block rivals, a court ruling likely to boost Europe’s crackdown on Big Tech.

The European Commission had originally handed out ‌a €4.34 billion ⁠fine to ⁠Google in 2018 for its agreements which forced phone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search, the Chrome browser and the Google Play app store on their Android devices and prevented them from using rival Android systems.