Google agreed on Monday to pay a $35.8 million fine in Australia after the consumer watchdog found it had hurt competition by paying the country’s two largest telcos to pre-install its search application on Android phones, excluding rival search engines.

The fine extends a bumpy period for the Alphabet-owned internet giant in Australia, where last week a court mostly ruled against it in a lawsuit brought by Fortnite maker Epic Games accusing Google and Apple of preventing rival application stores in their operating systems.

Google’s YouTube was also last month added to an Australian ban on social media platforms admitting users aged under 16, reversing an earlier decision to exempt the video-sharing site. 3

On anti-competitive tie-ups with Australian telcos, the country’s consumer

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