European officials have once again extended the deadline for Google to respond to charges that its deals with manufacturers of smartphones running its Android operating system violate antitrust rules.
Competition regulators on the continent charged in April that deals requiring Google’s search and browser applications to be installed on Android phones in exchange for accessing other products broke the rules. They argue that it allows the company to bolster and maintain its dominant position in the search market.
{mosads}Reuters reported on Monday that officials have extended the deadline for Google to respond to the charges to Oct. 31 from Sept. 20. The move came at Google’s request.
The previous extension was granted in early September.
Google, now a division of holding company Alphabet, is facing three sets of antitrust charges in Europe.
They have also been accused of violating competition rules in cases related to their comparison shopping service and online advertising business. The deadlines for them to reply in both of those cases are also currently scheduled for October.
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has aggressively pursued American firms, including the tech sector.
That included a recent decision to make Apple pay billions of dollars in back taxes. United States officials have decried that move, and Vestager met with lawmakers during a visit to Washington last month.
But she’s long said that she doesn’t hold a bias against U.S. firms.
“As I said, the nationality of a company is a nonrelevant fact,” she said just over a year ago. “Nonetheless, some claim that when our casework involves giants like Apple or Google, [it] is an evidence of bias. But this is a fallacy.”