A
federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit accusing Google of harming
smartphone buyers by forcing handset makers that use its Android
operating system to make the search engine company’s own applications
the default option.
Consumers
claimed that Google required companies such as Samsung to favor Google
apps such as YouTube on Android-powered phones, and restrict rival apps
such as Microsoft Bing.
They
said this illegally drove smartphone prices higher because rivals could
not compete for the “prime screen real estate” that Google’s apps
enjoyed.
But
in Friday’s decision, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San
Jose, California said the consumers failed to show that higher prices
stemmed from Google’s having illegally forced restrictive contracts on
the handset makers. She also said she could not tell how many supply
chain levels there were between the handset makers who signed the
alleged anticompetitive contracts, and the consumers themselves.
“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,” Freeman
wrote.
The
judge gave the plaintiffs three weeks to amend claims under the federal
Sherman antitrust law and California’s unfair competition law.
Robert
Lopez, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond to
requests for comment. Aaron Stein, a Google spokesman, declined to
comment.
Google also faces antitrust issues in Europe.
The
European Parliament in November urged antitrust authorities to break up
the Mountain View, California-based company and called on the European
Commission to consider proposals to unbundle search engines from other
services.
The case is Feitelson et al v. Google Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 14-02007.
Posted by : Gizmeon
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