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FTC Probes Android and Google Search
bonch writes "The FTC is investigating claims that Google prevented Android smartphone vendors from using competing services (covered previously), whether Google preferentially places its own services above others on the search results page, and whether Google scraped content from competitors for use in its own services. FTC lawyers are also asking how Android may be helping Google maintain its massive web search lead. Google denies all allegations and blames jealous rivals for the growing number of probes. The European Commission's own antitrust probe is ongoing."
It did take time but finally someone is putting a stop to Google's monopolistic business strategies. I'm surprised they would repeat exactly the same mistakes Microsoft did in the 90's. Preventing Android smartphone vendors from using other services than Google's is exactly the same kind of deal and is highly anti-competitive, as is their favoring of their own services above competing ones.
Anti-competitive laws are exactly this - you should not use your monopoly in another area to gain unfair advantage in other market. What you especially should not do is prevent vendors from using other providers. Google has been doing all of this, but they do it really sneakily. Most of their marketing is really wise social engineering, the best example of being constant bombardment to download and switch to Chrome if you use IE.
Just because Google offers services for free and gets paid for them via advertisements and privacy violating data mining doesn't mean they can get away with everything. Most slashdotters seem to be blinded by the whole free and supposedly open thing, while most of their products are actually closed.
Google+ vs. Facebook, and why Google+ will fail
Whenever I see the word "probes" in a headline, it seems like the first thing that occurs to me is anal probes. It seems like they'd just as easily be able to use "investigates" and avoid this connotation.
Of course, the little green man graphic didn't help that any either.
I'm the real Vorokrytin P. Winterbuttocks.
Bing (Microsoft product) paid Verizon (a near-monopolistic wireless carrier) to do exactly this. Google search was scraped from all the Blackberries, and possibly other phones as well, even though Google was the default search engine when customers purchased the device. This was done openly and for some reason FCC took no interest in the event. At least now we know who's pocket FCC is sitting in.
Who uses bing anyway? Oh wait those poor souls who are forced to use MSIE at work.
So what other ad network can I use if I want to make a free but ad-supported program besides Google's?
Wikipedia has a list of ad networks. Companies as big as Yahoo! have recommended using Chitika.
Time to retire this handle now too.
This is SOP for Micro$oft.
So Micro$oft assumes everyone else does it too.
It seems like they'd just as easily be able to use "investigates" [instead of "probes"] and avoid this connotation.
They use "probes" to save space, the same reason people use "M$" instead of "Microsoft" in Slashdot comment subjects, and the same reason you use "V." and not "Vorokrytin" in your Slashdot username. Let me open Python:
Google paid Apple $100 million a year to be the search provider on the iPhone.
FTA "FTC lawyers have also asked about the growing influence of Android and how it may be helping Google maintain its lead in Web search. Google's search engine is the default for many phones built using Android." I hope that all these people look at the back of the phones, and see the "with Google (tm)" logo... That's effectively notifying everyone that Google products are going to come with the device. Why should Google package Yahoo! search with the OS that they developed. IANAL, but I feel that Google isn't breaking any anti-competition laws this time.
Oh wait, no one is forced to use it because it is trivial to change.
Trivial for the user, or trivial for the Group Policy administrator and locked out for the user?
Apple has finalized their purchase of the FTC.
Should I point out the irony in the fact that Apple had such an incredible stronghold with their phone service, that they actually started to BLOCK Google and use their OWN advertising service to gain additional revenue and take away from Google? As far as I'm concerned, that's unfair trade practices that APPLE has been guilty of, and if Google is doing the same thing, Apple should be reprimanded as well.
Google's defensive posture is getting a little tired, and less and less effective. They think the answer to their legal troubles is a massive PR campaign. "It's not us, it's just that our competitors are jealous!" "We're not infringing on patents, we're just being oppressed, victimized systematically by these outrageous patent litigation abusers!"
I'm starting to ignore Google's pleas for understanding. These are not legal defense arguments. They're red herrings, and they're terrible ones at that. They're being childish, and to resort to these tactics, is actually starting to make me suspicious that they're not so innocent after all.
Why does Apple get a pass? Everything about Apple is territorial...
So surely they must be guilty of a Monopoly? 65% market share is monopoly, but 95% of the PC market share through paying manufacturers to require Windows taxes be levied on all PCs regardless of whether they want Windows installed is OK? It a monopoly even when Phone manufacturers can and do change the default search engine, and people use Google to search anyway? Please...
Google does block competitors from Android phones, but it's not because they're Android phones. Anyone can make an Android phone and use any search-engine default, any advertising network, that they want. What Google does is say that if you want to use the Google brand on the phone you can't use non-Google services on it. To me that seems to be a completely valid use of their trademark, and has nothing to do with their position in search. You want an Android phone that doesn't put Google front-and-center? Look for one that isn't Google-branded. And as far as I know Google does nothing whatsoever to stop anyone from making a non-Google-branded Android phone, correct?
When I went to get my droid device and switch from Windows Mobile way back when. I was on AT&T, I would have stayed with them as well except they had 2 Droid devices at the time and they had not only changed but locked in Yahoo as the only search engine. You couldn't change it. So I switched to Verizon. Anyway the Android operating system not only can have the search changed by the manufacturer, but also by the provider. So not sure why there even would be an investigation in the matter.
doesn't matter. They have sufficient market share to influence the market. If they use that influence in a way that unfairly jeopardizes competition in the market, they can be fined. So yes, 60-something percent of the market is enough for the FTC to take these complaints seriously. But I don't see the financial implications of the ruling to be of consequence. The fines that MSFT payed for its noncompetitive practices were not nearly as significant as the damages it caused to their reputation. Do people really think GOOG is vulnerable to the same tarnishing?
"whether Google preferentially places its own services above others on the search results page"
No. They should just ask the Android users. If you type in Google Talk (which I know is installed by default on most phones, but for say someone who stuck CyanogenMod on) and you'll get a lot of other applications listed before you'll see Google Talk. It was quite annoying actually, and isn't something that just happened recently. Same with Latitude, Skymap or skyview or whatever it is, etc.
As for the search, with how the handset makers tweak and change the layout and software as they do, I doubt if they wanted if they couldn't have stuck Bing on.. but the question would be why? Reviews have shown Bing is good for certain types of searches, and google for others. Plus I believe more people use Google than Bing. So why spend the extra time to change it to Bing?
That'd be like making a product which already came bundled with something people use.. and instead you spend the time and money in changing the included, mostly used thing over to say the second or third most popular/used thing... it just wouldn't really make sense to do
A phone which says powered by Google on the back which has the Google logo on it, runs an operating system that was created by Google, uses Google search as the default?
Say it ain't so!
Mind you there's absolutely nothing stopping competitors, nothing stopping you installing an alternative browser, nothing stopping Samsung or HTC installing a Bing search bar in the phone, nothing stopping the ISP from including different defaults in the CSC.
Completely unlike Microsoft which says you will install windows on your computer and that will come with Internet Explorer and as soon as you install something else Internet Explorer will complain about not being the default.... and mandating that through the entire computer channel so that users and more critically competitors couldn't provide choice.