Internal sources claim that American search giant, Google will face antitrust investigations in China in the coming weeks. There are also claims that the decision to drag the Alphabet-owned company before a probe panel may come in October 2020.
A Reuters report mentions that Huawei Technologies Co Ltd proposed the probe and submitted the petition in 2019. The State Council antitrust committee in China has been reviewing the possible case ever since. As one of the sources told Reuters, the trade war between China and the US may affect the decision to probe Google.
In recent months, the Trump administration has been making policies to limit the use of Chinese-owned technology in the US. It had banned Huawei and has been trying its best to influence other countries to throw the company out as well as limit its 5G equipment.
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Even more recently, TikTok and We Chat, two Chinese-owned social media platforms had been caught in this hunt. Thus, many would be viewing the Google probe as some sort of revenge or muscle flex. Recall also that there were even suggestions that China would act against some American tech companies in its territory.
However, there may be some solid reasons to probe Google. For example, the company has been facing some antitrust investigations in different states in the US. Also, in 2018, the European Union fined Google $5.1 billion for anticompetitive practices.
Additionally, in the US, Google along with Facebook, Apple and Amazon had faced an antitrust committee in July 2020. The Google antitrust probe in China could also take the direction of looking at how Google’s lack of support for Huawei Android phones could hurt the phone maker.
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