Ammon News - Japanese authorities said Tuesday they had issued a cease-and-desist order to US tech titan Google over an alleged violation of national antitrust laws.

It is the first time the country has issued such an order to a global technology giant, Japanese media reported, and follows similar moves in Europe and the United States.

"We have concluded that Google LLC's conduct threatens to impede fair competition," Saiko Nakajima of the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) told reporters on Tuesday.

The problem is "related to the implementation of search functions for Android smartphones, in violation of the antitrust law", she said.

The JFTC accuses Google of imposing binding conditions on Android smartphone manufacturers in Japan since at least July 2020.

Specifically, it says Google made sure its online app store Google Play would be installed as part of a package with its web-browser search app Chrome.

Google Play is so widely used that without it, "Android devices are basically unsellable", a government source told AFP in December. AFP