A U.S. judge favored Google and ruled to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the search giant of entering a deal with Android device makers of using its services as default apps.
U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose, Calif. said on Friday that the smartphone buyers who filed the class-action antitrust lawsuit failed to prove that the high prices of the devices are because of the Google default apps. The consumers claimed that Google illegally made a deal with Android smartphone makers, according to Reuters.
"Their alleged injuries - supra competitive prices and threatened loss of innovation and consumer choice - are not the necessary means by which defendant is allegedly accomplishing its anticompetitive ends," Freeman wrote.
Freeman is expecting to see an analysis of the number of supply-chain levels between the device makers and the consumers. She needs that information to determine if the agreements between two parties caused the high prices, Bloomberg reported.
The plaintiffs were given three weeks to revise their claims. Their lawyer, Robert Lopez, did not immediately respond to request for comments, while Google declined to comment.
The dismissal of the case is a relief for Google, which is also facing antitrust issues in Europe. Russia's competition watchdog filed a similar case on Friday claiming that having Google as the default search engine of Android devices is against the anti-monopoly law. Yandex NV, Russia's biggest search engine, reached out to the watchdog to commence an investigation and find out if Google is limiting Android users to its services, Reuters reported on another story.
Google was quick to deny the allegation.
"Device makers are free to install the apps they choose and consumers always have complete control over the apps on their devices," Google said in an email.
