Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, January 19 (Xinhua)-- India's Supreme Court today rejected Google's request to block an antitrust order, Reuters reported. The order forced Google to change the way Google marketed its Android platform, dealing a major blow to its key growth market in India.

The Competition Commission, India's antitrust regulator, fined Google, a unit of Alphabet, $161 million (currently about 1.088 billion yuan) for taking advantage of its dominance of Android. CCI also asked Google to change its restrictions on pre-installed apps imposed on smartphone makers. Statistics show that 97% of smartphones in India use Android.

CTOnews.com learned that Google challenged the directive in India's Supreme Court, saying it would hurt consumers and their business, and warned that the development of the Android ecosystem could stagnate.

Three judges of India's Supreme Court, including India's chief justice, extended the implementation date of the CCI directive by one week from January 19, but despite Google's repeated demands, they refused to block the ruling and asked the lower court, which is considering the matter, to make a decision on Google's lawsuit by March 31.

Google licenses Android to smartphone makers. But critics say Google has imposed some restrictions, such as forcing its own apps to be pre-installed, which is anti-competitive. Google argues that such agreements help keep Android free.

In addition, Google said in a filing to India: "No other jurisdiction has ever called for such far-reaching reforms." Google also argued in a legal document that CCI's investigative department had "copied and pasted a large number of European Commission decisions, using evidence from Europe that has not been reviewed in India". "We didn't cut, copy and paste," N Venkataraman, a government lawyer representing the Indian Competition Commission (CCI), told the Supreme Court.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.