Russia's anti-monopoly agency said yesterday Google was abusing its market position in the country and would face penalties, in a case launched by local competitor Yandex.
The FAS anti-monopoly body said Google had violated the law by pre-installing certain applications on mobile devices and could face penalties totalling up to 15% of its 2014 revenue in this part of the Russian market.
FAS declined to specify the revenue in question, saying it was a trade secret, but said it would decide on the exact value of the fine after 28 September. It added Google must then pay and change its ways, or risk more fines if violations continue.
Google Russia said it would analyse the decision and declined further comment until then.
Shares in Yandex, which rivals Google as Russia's biggest Internet search engine, rose as much as 9% before stabilising around 7% higher.
Yandex, which filed a complaint against Google with FAS in February, welcomed the decision.
"We believe the FAS decision will serve to restore competition on the market," the company said.
It added the complaint included the practice of bundling applications from the Google Mobile Services with the Google Play store, requiring pre-installation of the Google search engine as the default, and giving Google application icons preferential placement on the screen of mobile devices.
"In addition, the investigation confirmed the existence of agreements on prohibition of pre-installation of competitors' apps," Yandex said.
Yandex is ahead of Google in Russia but has seen competition stiffen in mobile phones as consumers have adopted Android-based handsets that come pre-loaded with Google products that compete directly with Yandex applications.
Google's total 2014 revenue stood at $66 billion. The company's Web site does not provide a separate revenue figure for Russia, or the exact segment involved in the case.
Analysts at App Annie say Russia was Google's number four market in the world in the second quarter of 2015 in terms of Google Play downloads.
The European Union is conducting its own anti-trust case against Google.
Putin Web site attack
Meanwhile, hackers made a "very powerful" attack on the Kremlin Web site on Sunday, the Russian government said on Monday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov linked the attack to regional elections in Russia on Sunday in which the opposition sought to challenge government-allied politicians in the one region it was allowed to run.
Peskov said the election commission's Web site came under attack on Sunday morning.
"Given that, you will certainly be interested to know that from 5am to 10am on Sunday, a very powerful attack was simultaneously carried out on the Russian president's Web site," Peskov told reporters.
"Defence systems worked though it was not easy, the attack was rather strong."
He said had no information on who might have been behind the attack.
Russia has a hacking criminal underground and the US regularly accuses Russian, as well as Chinese, hackers of attacks.
Experts say Russian government-backed hackers target US government computers as well as help spread Moscow propaganda at a time of dire relations between the Kremlin and the West over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, human rights and other issues.
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