Google will pay 4.67 billion dollars after the final ruling of the European Court of Justice, going back to 2018 when the European Commission concluded that Google had abused its Android platform to give its apps an unfair advantage; the initial fine was larger, at 4.34 billion euros (4.94 billion US dollars), but after several appeals, the court reduced the fine to 4.1 billion euros (4.67 billion US dollars).

According to “9to5mac”, the European Court of Justice rejected Google and Alphabet’s appeal against the General Court's ruling, confirming the penalty imposed on them for their monopolistic practices related to the Android operating system.

CNBC reported that the European Court of Justice has rejected Google’s latest appeal; since the court is the highest judicial body in the European Union, there will be no further appeals and Google will have to pay the fine.

Applications imposed by Google on Android phones

The essence of the case concerns how Google distributes its applications to manufacturers of Android phones; Google provides many brands of smartphones with the basic Android software, and it has specific agreements with these manufacturers.

The European Commission concluded that Google exploited those agreements to impose its apps and services, such as Google Search, Chrome, Gmail, and more, by requiring pre-installation.

Google only provided Android to other companies if it was pre-installed with its apps and services, which made it difficult for competing similar apps, creating a kind of monopoly.

Untech-savvy users often resort to pre-installed apps, which are not the best at all. Chrome browser, for example, consumes a lot of RAM.

Google fought fiercely on this issue but lost in the end. Throughout the litigation, Google claimed that Android gives users and developers complete freedom and more options, but the company had to amend its agreements with Android companies, which you may have noticed if you recently set up a new phone.