From the European Commission fact sheet (Emphasis theirs):
The Commission’s investigation showed that Google obliges manufacturers, who wish to pre-install Google’s app store for Android, Play Store, on their devices, to also pre-install Google Search, and set it as the default search provider on those devices. In addition, manufacturers who wish to pre-install Google’s Play Store or Search, also have to pre-install Google’s Chrome browser. Thereby, Google has ensured that Google Search and Google Chrome are pre-installed on the significant majority of devices sold in the EEA.
And:
Google’s conduct has had a direct impact on consumers, as it has denied them access to innovative smart mobile devices based on alternative, potentially superior, versions of the Android operating system. The Commission has found evidence that Google’s conduct prevented manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices based on a competing Android fork which had the potential of becoming a credible alternative to the Google Android operating system. In doing so, Google has also closed off an important way for its competitors to introduce apps and services, in particular general search services, which could be pre-installed on Android forks.
And:
Google has granted significant financial incentives to some of the largest smartphone and tablet manufacturers as well as mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
The letter was also sent to Alphabet, as Google’s parent company.
This is silly. Customers have not been denied anything. They can still override. Reality is that most customers prefer Google search anyhow.
This is like complaining that when I bought my Ford Fusion—one of dozens of brands and hundreds of models available to me—that I also had to buy it with the tires and stereo that Ford picked for it, and claiming that some injustice was done.
There is no injustice. If I don’t like the tires, I can get get new ones. If I were an Android user and didn’t like Google Search, I can choose to not use it or install an alternative.
The complain also ignores what is readily apparent: That hundreds millions of people actually like the services and products offered by Google. They chose to use them because they like them. And if they change their mind or something better comes along, they can easily switch.
On the other hand, if you are a resident of an E.U. country, opting out of their policies is much more difficult. The ability to choose in one situation leads to better service, while the inability to choose in the the other leads to worse service. So it’s rich that a structure that closes itself off from competition judges a player in a very competitive market.
I suspect that if you were to get to the bottom of this complaint, you’d find the same forces at work as most anti-trust complaints: The investigation was not initiated in response to consumer complaints, but pressed for by competitors consumers have largely rejected. Anti-trust regulation dresses itself in the guise of pro-consumer, but in reality, it favors companies that have not been able to succeed on their relative merits alone.
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Let’s not forget the fact that a significant portion of those hundreds of millions of people have absolutely no idea that they can switch services on their phones. Just as they had no idea that they could use a browser other than IE on their old commodity PCs in years past. And “RTFM” is not a valid response to that.