By Foo Yun Chee and Sudip Kar-GuptaBrussels — Google on Thursday lost its battle against a record fine imposed by EU antitrust regulators eight years ago for using its Android mobile operating system to block rivals, in a court ruling that is likely to boost Europe’s crackdown on Big Tech.The European Commission had originally issued a €4.34bn fine to Google in 2018 for its agreements which forced phone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search, the Chrome browser and the Google Play app store on their Android devices and prevented them from using rival Android systems.A lower tribunal trimmed the fine to €4.1bn in 2022 after the world’s most popular search engine challenged the EU penalty. Google then appealed to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union, Europe’s highest, which sided with the regulator.“The appeal brought by Google and its parent company Alphabet against the judgment of the general court is dismissed, thereby confirming the penalty imposed for Google Search’s abuse of a dominant position in the context of the Android operating system,” the judges said.A Google spokesperson said that the judgment failed to take into account its investment to ensure Android remains open, interoperable and free.“In any event, we adapted our agreements to comply with the initial decision back in 2018, and we remain focused on continued innovation and openness for our users, partners and developers“, Google said.Google has racked up almost €11bn in EU fines over the past decades for various antitrust infringements.It is likely to receive more fines soon for allegedly favouring its services and products in search results and for practices related to its app store, both of which fall un