China has opened an antitrust inquiry into Google for possible violations of the Anti-Monopoly Law.
The investigation may be tied to its Android ecosystem, advertising services, and previous market dominance.
The State Administration for Market Regulation’s (SAMR) notice on Tuesday did not clarify which areas of Google’s business were being investigated or provide any information. Google has yet to react to Caixin’s inquiry on the investigation.
Google launched the Chinese-language search engine google.cn in 2006.
It was censored to comply with Beijing’s laws, and in 2009, was a major search engine in China with about 36% market share.
In 2010, in response to a cyberattack and an increasing unwillingness to comply with censorship rules, Google said it was no longer willing to block search results and shut down its Chinese search engine, redirecting users to its Hong Kong site instead.
Beijing later stopped Google services under its Great Firewall censorship system, including Gmail, the Chrome browser, and the search engine, rendering them inaccessible to users in mainland China.
China routinely prohibits major Western internet platforms, including Google, as well as social networking networks like Facebook and Instagram.
Although Google services are not accessible in China, the company still maintains a presence in the country, primarily focused on sales and engineering for its advertising business. It also has employees working on services including Google Cloud and customer solutions.
Google maintains offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said Tuesday it was investigating Google on suspicion of violating antitrust laws.
The announcement came minutes after the new U.S. tariffs came into effect.
Some experts believe that the antitrust investigation is likely to centre around Google’s Android operating system for smartphones and to be used as a bargaining chip in the U.S.-China trade war.
Google has been accused of violating antitrust law in other countries, including those in the European Union, South Korea, Russia, India and Türkiye, for allegedly abusing its market dominance.
