[JURIST] A Moscow arbitration court on Monday rejected [press release] an appeal by Google [corporate website], upholding a ruling that the US-based company broke anti-monopoly laws by abusing its dominant position within the cellular application industry. Russian Internet company Yandex brought the case to the Federal Anti-monopoly Service (FAS) [official website] claiming that Google broke the law by requiring the pre-installation of specific apps for Android users. Yandex claimed that Google’s role in the pre-installed apps prohibited other companies from establishing their applications for new users. The Moscow arbitration court fully supported the FAS ruling.

Google has come under scrutiny for its privacy policies and is currently facing worldwide suits over alleged violations. In February 2014 a French court ruled [JURIST report] that Google must display on its French page that they have been fined by the local data-protection watchdog for how they store user information. In January 2014 the UK High Court [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that Google can be sued by British citizens. In November 2013 the Dutch Data Protection Agency [official website, in Dutch] stated that Google was in violation [JURIST report] of the country’s data protection act. Earlier that month a Berlin court held that 25 of Google’s privacy policies and terms of service violated [JURIST report] Germany’s data protection law. In September 2013 the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] denied Google’s motion to dismiss [JURIST reports] a lawsuit regarding the company’s alleged violation of federal law.