Just like how Microsoft uses Bing as its default search engine for its Windows Phone platform, Google relies on their own search engine as the default when it comes to Android. It makes sense, doesn’t it? However Yandex, who is considered to be the Google of Russia, isn’t too pleased about that.According to a report from TechCrunch, Yandex was so unhappy that they filed an antitrust complaint against Google over possible violations of Russia’s antitrust laws. According to Yandex spokesperson Ochir Mandzhikov, “We believe that device manufacturers should have a choice as to which search provider to set as the default or which services to have preinstalled on the device. Google should not prevent manufacturers from preinstalling competitor apps.”
Mandzhikov goes one step further by suggesting that perhaps Google search and Google’s own services should be unbundled from the Android operating system. “This is why we are talking about the need to unbundle Google’s Android operating system from Google Search and its other end-user services.” We suppose from a competitive point of view, it would be the fair thing to do.
However many Android users use Android simply because it has Google’s services tied to it. For example you can sync the contacts on your phone with your address book, your emails are also linked between your phone and your Gmail account, your calendar, and even what you search affects the Google Now cards, all of which are pretty invaluable.
This isn’t really the same as Microsoft forcing Internet Explorer down everyone’s throats since many Android users are probably more than happy with Google’s services and features, but what do you guys think? Is Google being anti-competitive in this instance?