Japan’s antitrust watchdog issues Google ‘cease and desist’ order over unfair trade practices
An attendee takes a photograph using a Google Pixel 9 smartphone during the CP+ trade show in Yokohama, Japan on February 27, 2025.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) on Tuesday issued a cease and desist order against Google for unfair trade practices regarding search services on Android devices— a move that aligns with similar crackdowns on firms in the UK and the U.S.
In a statement, the Commission said the American tech giant violated Japan’s anti-monopoly law by requiring Android device manufacturers to prioritize its own search apps and services through licensing agreements.
While Google develops the Android operating system, separate manufacturing companies like Samsung and Lenovo produce handheld Android products, such as smartphones and tablets. Thus, licensing agreements are necessary to grant these manufacturers permission to preinstall Google apps, including its Play Store, onto devices.
However, JFTC said Google also used licenses to require manufacturers to preinstall and prominently feature Google Search and Chrome on devices, with at least six such agreements in effect with Android makers as of December 2024.
The Commission added that the company required manufacturers to exclude rival search services as a condition of its advertising revenue-sharing model.
Under Japan’s anti-monopoly law, businesses are prohibited from carrying out trade on restrictive terms that unjustly impede transaction partners’ business activities.
JFTC first published the commencement of its probe into Google on October 23, 2023, and in April 2024, it approved a commitment plan from Google that addressed some of its anti-competitive concerns.
The cease and desist order demonstrates a harder stance taken by the Japanese government as well as its first such action against a U.S. tech giant.
The move also comes amid a trend of anti-competitive actions against Google globally. According to JFTC, it coordinated its probe with other overseas competition watchdogs that had experience investigating Google.
In a landmark case last year, a federal U.S. judge ruled that Google held an illegal monopoly in the search market, saying that its exclusive search arrangements on Android and Apple’s iPhone had helped to cement its dominance in the space.
Meanwhile, Britain’s competition watchdog opened an investigation into Google’s search services in January following the country’s implementation of new competition rules.
JFTC’s cease and desist orders that Google stop mandating that its own services be installed and featured prominently on smartphones.
Additionally, the company should relax its restrictive conditions for the distribution of advertising revenue, allowing manufacturers to choose from a variety of options.
Google has also been asked to appoint an independent third party that will report to the JFTC on its compliance with the cease and desist order over the next five years.
Technology
How Broadcom’s big OpenAI deal fits into the data center boom and what it means for the AI trade
Oracle CEO, Clay Magouyrk, sits down with CNBC’s David Faber on Oct. 13, 2025.
CNBC
Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk, one of the two people tapped last month to lead the software company, is confident that OpenAI will be able to cover the costs of the massive amount of cloud infrastructure services it consumes.
In an interview with CNBC’s David Faber at Oracle’s AI World conference on Monday, Magouyrk said “of course” OpenAI can pay $60 billion for a year’s worth of cloud resources. In July, OpenAI agreed to a five-year deal with Oracle that’s worth over $300 billion.
“Just look at the rate at which they’ve grown to, you know, almost a billion users. That’s just unheard of,” said Magouyrk, who sat alongside fellow Oracle CEO Mike Sicilia for the interview in Las Vegas.
OpenAI said last week that its flagship ChatGPT chatbot, which was publicly launched less than three years ago, now has 800 million weekly active users. In 2024, OpenAI recorded a $5 billion net loss.
Sicilia said Oracle has started integrating OpenAI artificial intelligence models into a patient portal for viewing electronic health records. Oracle acquired EHR vendor Cerner for about $28 billion in 2022.
“I’ve seen the results, and I really do think that they’re going to have a dramatic impact on industries, on enterprises of all types,” Sicilia said of OpenAI.
OpenAI rents out Nvidia graphics chips to run models through Oracle, as well as CoreWeave, Google and Microsoft. At the same time, the company is designing a custom AI processor that Broadcom will build. Earlier on Monday, Broadcom and OpenAI said they will jointly deploy 10 gigawatts worth of the new OpenAI chips.
Building out that much infrastructure requires a hefty amount of new energy.
“I think it’s a factor of time, not a factor of if we’ll have enough power,” Sicilia said.
Oracle shares rose almost 6% on Monday. The stock has gained 86% this year, lifting Oracle’s market cap close to $900 billion.
WATCH: Oracle CEO Magouyrk: ‘Of course’ OpenAI can pay $60 billion per year
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