Original article is written in German. I made a translation via Deepl Pro and also added a few edits.
The Swiss Competition Commission is launching an investigation into Google.
“Google recently discontinued this feature in Switzerland, whilst it remains available in the European Economic Area (EEA). As a result, Google Search is set as the default search engine for users in Switzerland without a selection screen being displayed when they first set up their device.
Default settings play a crucial role in digital markets. The ‘choice screen’ is intended to reduce foreclosure effects caused by default settings. The removal of this feature could limit the visibility of search engines competing with Google during device set-up, thereby raising barriers to market entry.
This new practice by Google could impair the competitive opportunities of search engine providers and, by extension, of other digital services. Furthermore, it leads to unequal treatment of users in Switzerland compared with those in the EEA, even though the competitive conditions are comparable.
The preliminary investigation is intended to clarify whether there are grounds for an unlawful restriction of competition within the meaning of the Cartel Act. The findings of this investigation could also be relevant to the assessment of practices relating to default settings on other mobile devices.”
The investigation itself is not surprising.
However, the reason why it has come to this is certainly intriguing:
As mentioned, it concerns the ‘Choice Screen’: Anyone setting up an Android mobile phone is now given the option to install other apps during the setup process (as is well known, Android belongs to Google). Switzerland has benefited from an EU decision in this regard.
A year ago, I set up a new mobile phone for someone and noticed that, indeed, it was possible to select other search engines and browsers right from the start.
Google’s options did not appear at the top, but further down the list.
Switzerland benefited from the EU decision
This freedom of choice for Swiss Android users stems from the EU Commission’s antitrust ruling against Google in the ‘Android case’ in July 2018; in this ruling, the Commission prohibited, amongst other things, the bundling and forced pre-installation of certain Google apps (Search, Chrome) as a prerequisite for access to the Play Store in the EU.
In particular, the Commission criticised the fact that device manufacturers were required to pre-install Google Search and Chrome in order to gain access to the Play Store and key Google services at all.
The Commission announced the decision, along with a record fine (€4.34 billion), on 17 July 2018. Google was required to change its licensing model within 90 days; since autumn 2018, a new model has therefore been in place in the EU, under which Search and Chrome are unbundled from the other Google apps and are no longer required to be pre-installed when manufacturers licence the Play Store.
As mentioned, Switzerland benefited from this rule for a long time, as Google also applied it to all Swiss Android users.
Of course, the big tech giant did not give up without a fight:
The company lodged an appeal against the European Commission’s Android ruling; the full course of legal proceedings ran from 2018 until the European Court of Justice’s final confirmation of the fine in July 2026.
This means that the legal proceedings in the Android antitrust case have been concluded for two weeks; Google no longer has any further avenues of appeal at EU level.
What is interesting here is that, although the ruling now definitively applies across the EU, Google has effectively reversed it in the case of Switzerland.
Google has effectively reversed it – even though it definitively applies across the EU
This means that Google has once again imposed its services on the Swiss public, even though the company has, until now, very often extended EU rulings and Commission decisions to Switzerland, from which Switzerland has benefited.
In the past, Switzerland has been a ‘beneficiary’ of many EU decisions.
For example, the merging of Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook profiles into a ‘SUPER’ profile for Meta, which used this to blackmail its users (a ‘take it or leave it’ approach). The consolidation and merging are primarily intended to serve advertising purposes. Following protests from the EU and privacy activists, the IT company Meta backed down from this, and Switzerland also benefited as a result. Or take the upload filters, which affect Switzerland just as much when it comes to copyright. Youtube applies these to Swiss creators as well.
When it comes to AI, platform regulation and data protection, Switzerland has either already aligned itself with the EU or is currently in the process of doing so (though usually in a heavily watered-down, business-friendly ‘light’ version).
Unlike with platform regulation (the EU’s ‘Digital Services Act’), Switzerland has not independently enacted the EU’s Digital Markets Act into national law.
There is therefore no Swiss equivalent to it.
How do these differ from one another?
Swiss competition law (Antitrust Act, WEKO) operates primarily on an ex post basis: it intervenes when a particular behaviour (e.g. abuse of a dominant position, unlawful agreements) is specifically identified as problematic and investigated.
The DMA is ex ante regulation: it defines gatekeepers according to objective criteria and imposes detailed requirements and prohibitions on them in advance (interoperability, etc.), without the need for individual abuse proceedings in each case.
This U-turn by Google regarding pre-installation is, however, surprising. Apparently, Google now wishes to actively exploit the Swiss data market to the full for its own purposes and is once again forcing its Google services, such as Chrome and its search engine, upon everyone.
This is consistent with Google’s very recent, almost unusual monopolistic behaviour:
Alternative operating systems such as GrapheneOS are being penalised by the new Play Integrity API option, and developers must now identify themselves to Google by providing a copy of their passport. The aim is presumably to collect, store, hoard and use data for AI at any cost (a similar approach is evident in advertising technology, where Google has for years been trying – due to political pressure – to maintain a modicum of data protection in its Chrome browser, whilst seeking to keep the advertising data exclusively for itself rather than sharing it with advertising companies). To secure a leading position in the AI race, Google needs as much user data as possible. Hence, the strategy appears to be: greater isolation of its ecosystem (as with Apple).
When it comes to operating systems and Android developers, Switzerland is following the EU’s lead, as this is, after all, a decision by Google that is detrimental to competition and was made retrospectively. WEKO is also in contact with the EU authorities (I have written about this before).
The vice-director of the competition commission Oliver Schaller says:
«For several months now, we have been receiving numerous complaints regarding Google’s changed approach in the areas you have mentioned, particularly with regard to the new requirements for Android developers.
To the best of our knowledge, no competition authority has so far publicly announced that it is launching an investigation or taking interim measures against Google in these matters.
As Google’s conduct does not only affect Switzerland – unlike the ‘Choice Screen’ issue, which was the subject of our press release yesterday – we are in contact with our European colleagues. At present, we are unable to provide you with any further information. We thank you for your understanding.«
Well then: there isn’t all that much time left. It will soon be the end of September. That is when Google’s identification requirement comes into force.
Let’s hope that the EU competition authorities and Switzerland make some use of the summer break.
