Google has been found guilty of abusing its dominant market position in Russia, which is a result of a probe opened in February by the country's Federal Antimonopoly Service.
The probe was opened back in February following a complaint by Yandex, the biggest Internet company in Russia, which accused Google of unfair practices related to the bundling of apps with the Android mobile operating system.
Yandex complained that smartphone manufacturing companies were unable to include Yandex's competing products against Google within devices powered by Android. This spurred the investigation on whether Google was unfairly bundling the company's own services in the operating system.
While the company was found guilty of abusing its market position, Google was not found guilty of unfair competition practices. The agency will issue its full ruling on the investigation within 10 business days, and Google will study and determine its next steps once it receives a copy of the ruling, according to a spokeswoman for Google in Russia.
Yandex, meanwhile, said that it welcomes the decision by the FAS in confirming the violations made by Google, with the belief that the ruling will help in restoring competition in the market.
"Russia is the first jurisdiction to have officially recognized these practices as anticompetitive," said Yandex in a statement.
Google will possibly have to change the agreements that it has with manufacturers of smartphones and other devices in accordance with the ruling. In addition, the company could be facing a fine, the amount of which has not yet been specified.
Yandex has held its own in Russia against the might of Google, with the Russian company still holding over half of the market share in online search in the country. However, Google has started to gain market share, supported by the 60 percent market share by its Android mobile operating system in the country. The prevalence of Android leads to a wider distribution and usage of Google Search, especially with the trend of users using their smartphones to go online more compared to using desktop computers.
Along with Russia, several more countries are cracking down on Google and other U.S.-based Internet companies, with investigations being launched into the market power held by these companies as well as introducing additional laws to provide governments with more access and control over user data and information being stored.
