Japan’s Fair Trade Commission plans to issue a cease-and-desist order against Google for violating the anti-monopoly law, sources said Sunday.
The Japanese antitrust watchdog found that the U.S. company has forced smartphone makers to install its search app, the people said.
Google will be the first U.S. technology giant to receive a cease-and-desist order from the FTC.
The FTC has notified Google of the plan and will make a final decision after hearing opinions from the company, the people said.
Google has signed contracts with makers of smartphones that run its Android operating system to have them install its Google Search and Google Chrome apps on home screens in exchange for allowing them to install their own app stores, the people said.
The company has also signed contracts with the smartphone makers to allow Google to pay a portion of the revenue from its paid search ads service to them on condition that they do not install rival search apps, the people said.