The search giant reaches settlement deal with Russia’s competition regulators that allows preinstallations of other search engines and apps on Android.
The Android home-screen search bar was at the center of a two-year dispute between Google and Russia regulators.
Google and Russia’s anti-monopoly watchdog agreed to settle a two-year-long disagreement over Google’s Android software.
According to the settlement, which Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service announced Monday , Google will stop demanding phone makers give exclusivity and priority to its Google apps on Android-based devices in Russia. The company also can’t restrict competing search engines and applications from being preinstalled on Android devices.
The dispute arose after Russia-based search company Yandex submitted a complaint to the FAS about Google’s practices.
