Google's fight against EU antitrust fine to be heard Feb. 12-14
BRUSSELS: Alphabet unit Google's fight against a 2.4-billion-euro ($2.64 billion) EU antitrust fine will be played out over three days in February 2020 at Europe's second-highest court, according to parties involved in the case.
The Luxembourg-based General Court will hear arguments from Google and a tech lobbying group backing its appeal while the European Commission will be supported by Germany and eight companies.
The hearing is scheduled for Feb. 1214, said Richard Stables, chief executive of British price comparison site Kelkoo, which is on the EU competition enforcer's side. Lawyer Thomas Hoeppner, who is advising three other parties on the EU side, also confirmed the dates.
Two years ago, the Commission accused Google of favouring its own price comparison shopping service, hitting it with the hefty fine as well as an order to stop its anti-competitive business practices and create a level playing field for rivals.
Google subsequently took its case to the General Court, one of three appeals against three separate EU antitrust decisions.
Groups supporting the Commission are European consumer group BEUC, British price comparison shopping site Foundem which triggered the EU investigation with its complaint, French price comparison site Twenga, German publishing groups VDZ and BDZV, EFTA (European Free Trade Association) and German publisher Axel Springer's price comparison fashion site Visual Meta.
The case is T-612/17 Google v European Commission.
Meanwhile, Google is rolling out a major update for messaging on its Android devices from Thursday and looks like the features are quite similar to the ones enjoyed by iPhone users on iMessage.
The new Message update on Android brings the ' Rich Communication Services' (as known as, RCS) technology to Android phones.
The update enhances the messaging features and allows the users to send text messages ( SMS) over Wi-Fi or mobile data, instead of the conventional system by mobile carriers.
The new update will also allow users to share high-quality photos and videos, receive typing notifications as well as receive delivery and read receipts.
Android users will also be able to name groups, add/remove other users from the group, and check to see the people who have not seen the last sent messages.
iPhone users have enjoyed these features for years and finally the same will be available for users who reply on Google's operating system.
However, it is still unclear how this will improve the messaging service between iPhone and Android users. Those who are not aware, text messaging between both the operating system is a major problem and the only way to communicate is via text, as the quality of both - video and photo is very poor.
Additionally, iMessage has its own standard and not the universally acclaimed RCS system. As of now, Apple has not said anything about using RCS to support iMessage so we are still unsure how the update by Google will facilitate messages between the two platforms. For Android users, the Google Messages update will be available on the company's own text messaging app - not on the carrier's text messaging service that is set for default on most smartphones.