App Maker Files EU Complaint Against Google, Alleging Abuse of Android Dominance

An app developer complained to European regulators that Google is abusing its position as maker of the world’s leading mobile-operating system, potentially adding to Europe’s probe of Android. The complaint was filed by Disconnect, which makes privacy and security applications. Google pulled a Disconnect app from its Play mobile app store in 2014, saying it violated a policy prohibiting software that interferes with other apps. In a complaint to the European Commission’s Competition Directorate, Disconnect said Google abused its dominant position in Europe’s mobile market to unfairly discriminate against Disconnect and favor its own privacy and security software. The moves limited Europeans’ access to competing privacy and security software, while letting Google and others track and collect Android users’ information for advertising, Disconnect said.

The app maker alleged Google pulled Disconnect because the software disrupted Google’s tracking and advertising efforts, the source of most of the Internet company’s revenue and profit. In an e-mail included in the complaint, a Play store employee said the app was removed because it prevented other apps from delivering ads. Disconnect asked European antitrust regulators to require Google to put its apps back in the Play store and treat the apps the same way Google treats its own privacy and security software. A Google spokesman called Disconnect’s claims “baseless.” Google has allowed more than 200 other privacy apps in the Play store, but blocks any apps that alter other apps’ functionality or remove their way of making money, he added, saying Google applies this policy uniformly, with strong support from Android developers.