A lawsuit that was filed against Google on anti-trust charges was dismissed by a U.S. federal judge. Google was charged of using its dominant position to influence companies in favoring their own applications as the default option in mobile devices. This practice illegally caused smartphone prices to become higher because rival companies have no way to compete against the "prime screen real estate" enjoyed by Google's apps.
One example of such companies is Samsung which, according to the plaintiffs, was required by Google to have Google apps such as YouTube on phones that are powered by Android. Likewise, Google allegedly restricted rival apps such as Bing of Microsoft.
U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of San Jose, California made a decision in favor of Google on Friday. According to Freeman, the plaintiffs failed to prove that Google has caused prices to become higher when the company illegally forced handset makers to enter into restrictive contracts.
"Their alleged injuries - supracompetitive prices and threatened loss of innovation and consumer choice - are not the necessary means by which defendant is allegedly accomplishing its anticompetitive ends," wrote Freeman.
The judge also added that there was no information on the number of supply chain levels that existed between the plaintiffs and the handset makers who allegedly signed contracts that promote unfair competition.
"There are no facts alleged to indicate that defendant's conduct has prevented consumers from freely choosing among search products or prevented competitors from innovating," said Freeman. In other words, the plaintiffs failed to show a link between the phone pricing and the software that is installed on the phones.
The plaintiffs were given at least three weeks to modify their charges against Google. Robert Lopez, their lawyer, has made no comment on the judge's decision.
Google has been charged with a number of anti-trust issues in the past. In Russia, authorities have just launched a probe to check the role of Google in the promotion and usage of apps on Android devices.
Back in November, the European Parliament urged anti-trust officials to break up Google. The latter, they said, should be broken up into its constituent parts while its search functions should be separated as a whole from all of the other services.
Google and Microsoft have been accusing each other with anti-trust issues for years. In 2011, Microsoft forwarded its complaint to European regulators after the company described Google as an Internet bully for abusing its dominance in advertising and online search.
