Europe probing Google Play Store for antitrust - report
Tomohiro Ohsumi


European antitrust enforcers are probing Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Play Store rules, marking the latest deep look at app stores, Politico reports.
The European Commission has confidentially begun questioning Google rivals over Google's billing terms and developer fees, according to the report.

And that probe is likely to take precedence over a similar investigation in the Netherlands, which will likely be closed to make room for the larger-scale probe. The UK has its own investigation going into the Play Store.
The investigations largely focus on the ability to use alternative billing systems to Google's, and developer fees that have ranged as high as 30%.

GOOG stock is up 0.3% early Thursday; GOOGL
+0.2%.
Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) began relaxing some billing policies in Europe last month as part of first steps toward ensuring compliance with the continent's Digital Markets Act.