On Tuesday, Germany’s antitrust agency opened an inquiry into Google Germany and its parent company Alphabet Inc for suspected anti-competitive limitations on the Google Maps platform.
“We have evidence that suggests Google may be restricting the use of its own map services in conjunction with third-party map services,” said Andreas Mundt, chairman of the Bundeskartellamt.
He cited the embedding of Google Maps location data, the search function, and Google Street View onto maps not provided by Google as examples.
According to him, the agency is investigating if this “may allow Google to further increase its position of power over particular map services.”
According to a Google representative, the corporation is engaging with regulators and will respond to any queries regarding its operations.
The regulator can prohibit businesses with a particular market weighting from engaging in actions that damage competition under new laws that went into effect last year.
The guidelines have been utilized by the agency to launch parallel investigations into Google’s data processing terms and the Google News Showcase, as well as digital titans Facebook and Amazon.
