• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Google’s voice assistant in new EU antitrust investigation, MLex reports

September 9, 2021 by David Barret Leave a Comment

September 9, 2021

By Foo Yun Chee and Nivedita Balu

BRUSSELS/BANGALURU (Reuters) -Alphabet Inc’s Google is being investigated by EU antitrust regulators over whether it may be forcing device makers to use Google Assistant as the default voice assistant on Android devices, news agency MLex reported on Thursday.

The European Commission in June said its sector inquiry into internet-connected devices drew concerns from respondents over certain exclusivity and tying practices related to voice assistants such as producers of smart devices being prevented from installing a second voice assistant on a device.

The most popular voice assistant devices in Europe are Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant, with the global market expected to double to 8.4 billion devices from 4.2 billion between 2020 and 2024, according to market research company Statista.

The EU competition enforcer has asked device makers to provide any evidence that they are being forced to pre-install Google Assistant and if Google wants exclusivity by banning rivals from Android devices, MLex said.

Google said Android provides more choice than any other mobile platform.

“Manufacturers can choose which voice assistants to install on their devices and users can also choose which assistants to use and install,” the company said in an email.

The Commission declined to comment and referred to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s news conference in June on the sector inquiry.

The Commission also wants to know if Google may be using its certification process for new devices to ensure exclusivity by another means, and the importance of the Google Play Store for different ecosystems, MLex said.

The regulator is also checking whether users may be able to use at least two voice assistants at the same time, the news agency said.

Google has already been fined more than 8 billion euros ($9.5 billion) by the Commission in the last decade in three separate cases.

The Commission has said it will issue a final report on its sector inquiry in the first half of 2022 after which it may open investigations.

($1 = 0.8454 euros)

(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru and Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Arun Koyyur, Susan Fenton and David Evans)

Source Link Google’s voice assistant in new EU antitrust investigation, MLex reports

David Barret
David Barret

Related posts:

  1. Hackers are hiring more English speakers to write believable email scams
  2. JBL Quantum 350 looks like a great affordable wireless gaming headset
  3. Canada trade surplus narrowed in July to C$778 million
  4. Life insurers shift to pre-pandemic norms after COVID vaccine roll-outs

Filed Under: News

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • The Bizarre 1997 Experiment That Made A Frog Levitate
  • There’s A Very Good Reason Why October 1582 On Your Phone Is Missing 10 Days
  • Skynet-1A: Military Spacecraft Launched 56 Years Ago Has Been Moved By Persons Unknown
  • There’s A Simple Solution To Helping Avoid Erectile Dysfunction (But You’re Not Going To Like It)
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS May Be 10 Billion Years Old, This Rare Spider Is Half-Female, Half-Male Split Down The Middle, And Much More This Week
  • Why Do Trains Not Have Seatbelts? It’s Probably Not What You Think
  • World’s Driest Hot Desert Just Burst Into A Rare And Fleeting Desert Bloom
  • Theoretical Dark Matter Infernos Could Melt The Earth’s Core, Turning It Liquid
  • North America’s Largest Mammal Once Numbered 60 Million – Then Humans Nearly Drove It To Extinction
  • North America’s Largest Ever Land Animal Was A 21-Meter-Long Titan
  • A Two-Headed Fossil, 50/50 Spider, And World-First Butt Drag
  • Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Losing Buckets Of Water Every Second – And It’s Got Cyanide
  • “A Historic Shift”: Renewables Generated More Power Than Coal Globally For First Time
  • The World’s Oldest Known Snake In Captivity Became A Mom At 62 – No Dad Required
  • Biggest Ocean Current On Earth Is Set To Shift, Spelling Huge Changes For Ecosystems
  • Why Are The Continents All Bunched Up On One Side Of The Planet?
  • Why Can’t We Reach Absolute Zero?
  • “We Were Onto Something”: Highest Resolution Radio Arc Shows The Lowest Mass Dark Object Yet
  • How Headsets Made For Cyclists Are Giving Hearing And Hope To Kids With Glue Ear
  • It Was Thought Only One Mammal On Earth Had Iridescent Fur – Turns Out There’s More
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version