Australian operators Telstra and Optus told the country’s competition regulator they would not enter any new agreements with Google which would lead to its search service being exclusively preinstalled and set as default on devices they supply.
The promise, announced as part of an on-going Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) investigation into Google’s search services, also applies to renewal of deals with the US company.
ACCC noted during its probe it became aware of previous arrangements between Google and the two operators, which had led to the tech giant’s product being installed as the default search engine on devices.
It noted the agreements had been active since “at least” 2017 but were both now expired. The authority claimed the deals “limited the ability for rival search engines to be pre-installed and promoted on Android devices, in return for a share of Google’s advertising revenue”.
It added the commitments from both resolved any concerns of their involvement into alleged uncompetitive practices, with both operators said to have fully cooperated with the regulator on the issue.
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