MOSCOW, October 19 EU antitrust sanctions against Google have led to an increase in the popularity of the Yandex search engine among European users of smartphones on the Android platform, reports Bloomberg.
“»The growth (of popularity — ed.) of Yandex followed an EU antitrust ruling, which led to Google… offering smartphone users on the Android operating system a choice of competing applications for searching the Internet,» the agency writes.
It is noted that Android smartphone users in 23 European countries can choose Yandex as their main search engine. The agency cites data from the Android website that shows the Yandex search engine was among the top five most popular options in Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic and Denmark.
In June, Vice-President of the European Commission Margarete Vestager reported that the EC notified Google of the company's violations of competition rules in the field of online advertising. Earlier, the media wrote that EU antitrust regulators are exploring the possibility of requiring Google to split its advertising and technology division as part of a new antitrust complaint. EU officials are reportedly considering ordering Google to sell some parts of its ad tech business.