South Korean antitrust officials raid Google offices on Android claims

INTERNET ADVERTISING BROKER Google has had its South Korean offices raided by the country's antitrust officials.

Google has come under increasing pressure over its position as the dominant web search vendor, leading to accusations that its search results are biased. However, search results are not the only thing under the spotlight, with attention being focused on Android.

In April, South Korean web portal outfits NHN Corp and Daum Communications Corp filed a joint complaint with the country's antitrust regulators alleging that Google was unfairly stifling competition in the mobile search market. The firms claimed that Android smartphones had Google's search engine installed by default and that Android was "systematically designed" to make it virtually impossible to switch to an alternative.

Google retorted by saying that it does not require mobile manufacturers that use Android to include Google internet search or applications. The second part is certainly true since those who load alternative Android ROMs such as Cyanogenmod have to download Google's applications package completely separately from the core distribution.

Bloomberg's source reports that South Korea raided Google's offices on Tuesday, but the source wouldn't go into any further detail apart from saying that officials planned to return on Wednesday.

The claims made by NHN and Daum Communications bring back memories of Microsoft's forceful tactics over Internet Explorer on its Windows operating system. If Google has been smart it will have documents to back up those claims of allowing Android smartphone manufacturers to choose the default search engine. Perhaps that is what the South Korean antitrust officials were looking for in their raid on Google's offices.

If Google hasn't documented that policy or is using Android to impose its search engine on millions of smartphone users, then it could have some explaining to do or might face sanctions. µ