Pretty wild that it took this long for something so obviously anti-competitive to come to light formally. I mean, locking in default search exclusivity on millions of devices in exchange for ad revenue kickbacks? Classic textbook behavior.
This is for 14 months of behaviour mostly in 2020. The telcos had already settled their side more than a year ago.
It isn't that long in terms of regulator response, believe it or not.
It came about out of an inquiry that released a report in 2021, that was further investigated and reported to government in 2022 and 2023.
Without knowing the inside story, this may have been gearing up to major litigation (the only way to fine someone in Australia), but settled at the last minute. Suing someone like Google comes with a lot of discovery time, particularly if they are trying to not be cooperative (and I have no idea if they were or not in this case).
That said, if you think this behaviour is bad, you should see what they pay Apple per year. Or even Mozilla.
