Ahead of hearing, Google swears it's not violating antitrust laws in Russia

Ahead of a hearing at Russia’s Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to address complaints by the Russian tech company Yandex, Google’s attorney told reporters that its Android software does not violate antitrust laws.

In mid-February, Yandex filed a 200-page complaint with FAS to investigate Google for violating Russian regulations against monopolies. Yandex says users should be able to choose which services come installed by default on their devices. “Services for users like search, maps, email, and so on,” the company argues, “need to be separated from the Android operating system.” Yandex also points out that Google banned in 2014 the device-manufacturers Fly, Explay, and Prestigio from preinstalling Yandex services on hardware.”

Tero Louko, Google’s senior competition counsel, said at a press conference today that the company has agreements with smart-phone manufacturers about profit-sharing on Android devices, rewarding manufacturers for defaulting more Google services. These agreements, Louko says, don’t break any Russian antitrust laws.

Louko did not confirm or deny that these agreements mention Yandex by name, though he did say that they discuss competitors generally. 

“We’re certain that we’re not violating Russian laws on competition. Yandex is Russia’s most popular search engine, and it can propose its own terms [to smart-phone manufacturers],” Loiko said.

In a December 2014 interview with the newspaper Vedomosti, Arkady Volozh, the founder of Yandex, accused Google of using unfair methods of competition. He has also publicly backed the European Commission's antitrust investigation into Google’s market practices, where Yandex has served as witness.