Japan’s antitrust watchdog today announced that it has launched an antitrust probe into Google LLC, increasing pressure on a company no stranger to such probes.

Japan’s Fair Trade Commission, or JFTC, is looking into whether Google has violated its Antimonopoly Act. It’s believed the company may have made a deal to share ad revenue with Android smartphone makers in Japan on the condition that they do not install rival search engines on their phones. The regulator will also probe the possibility that Google services are prioritized on Android phones.

The accusation looks a lot like the case the EU brought against Google in 2018, in which the company eventually paid a record $4.12 billion fine. It was one of three fines the EU has leveled at Google since 2017, together adding up to about $8.6 billion.

“There is suspicion that through these steps, it is excluding competitors’ business activity and restricting its business partners’ business activity in the search services market,” a JFTC official said at a press conference. “We’ve launched this probe wondering if the situation under which other search engine providers’ services have a hard time being recognized as a user’s choice, no matter how much improvement has been made, is artificially created.”

This comes after the U.S. Department of Justice last month launched what will be one of the biggest antitrust cases in U.S. history. The DOJ has accused Google of unfairly monopolizing the search engine business, of which Google has almost a 90% share in the U.S. As more pressure mounts, Google has constantly insisted that its dominance is a matter of quality and that users of its search engine can easily choose another product.

In Japan, Google’s market share of the search engine business is around 70%. The company believes this has been achieved through hard work and innovation, and rather than stifle competition, Google says, it has promoted it.

“We have continued to work closely with government agencies to demonstrate how we are supporting the Android ecosystem and expanding user choice in Japan,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to collaborate with the government and industry partners throughout this process.”

Regulators in Japan said they’ve already asked relevant third parties to offer feedback, with a deadline of Nov. 22.

Photo: Arkan Perdana/Flickr