In addition to Apple, Google also received a reprimand from the European Commission (EC) this morning regarding compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in European Union (EU) countries. In a notice published today, the EC found that Google is still giving advantages to its own services such as hotel listings, price comparisons and sports results when users search on Google Search. This is clearly in violation of the DMA which bypasses technology companies to be fair to competing services.
Furthermore, in the Play Store, Google is still not transparent in giving EU users the option to make payments outside the Play Store ecosystem. The payment deductions that Google has taken for several years have also received reprimands because they are said to be too long after the first payment is made through the Play Store.
This is seen as unfair to EU users who have to pay more and developers take a smaller cut of the profits. Google is now given time to make changes to all the shortcomings identified by the EC.
In a response statement published this morning, Google stressed that the EC's request would expose users to the dangers of malware, especially if the application is installed side-by-side outside the Google Play Protect security system. Meanwhile, Google said that without a price comparison system like their hotel, customers would lose out because paying directly from the official site is more expensive.