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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."
Your screed is only relevant if they are actually doing this whole "tying" thing.
Otherwise, it's all just a lot of hot air.
Web Search is the ultimate commodity free from vendor lock. It doesn't get much better than that in computing.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
Speaking from personal experience, my Galaxy S had Yahoo! as the default search bundled in the stock ROM from my provider...hell...it didnt even have all of the usual google applications. I dont see either Samsung or Telcel suffering or being locked out in any way from any google things...hell, there are even updates for the phones being rolled out right now...
Never under estimate the speed and efficiency of the internet hate machine.
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
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.
No, here's what happened, since you are unable to RTFA: Skyhook offered a vendor a discount if they would modify the phone to block non-Skyhook location services from functioning. This means that Google maps doesn't work, this means that any map or navigation software you buy on the market will crash. Google doesn't want handsets that can't run software from the market, because then they have an avalanche of complaints and returns. So their policy is that you are free to fuck with the API and break your phone as much as you want, but if it's broken they don't allow you to use the Android Market from it. See, Android and Google Apps are NOT bundled after all, and although you can always use Android if you follow the license, you are not guaranteed to be able to use Google Apps, especially the market. One rule they will not relax is "If your phone will not run some Market apps, you cannot use the Market at all". Because people already send them enough death threats about "fragmenting the market" without shitty vendors intentionally making their phone crash on certain apps to prevent competition. That's right, you are on the side of anti-competitive bullshit, not opposing it. Google is the one opposing Skyhook making a condition that says "your phone must block competing software from running". You can add new shit to the API (as long as you know that any apps you write using your new calls won't be allowed on the market since they only work on your phone) but you CANNOT remove functions from the API and still be allowed on the market. Anyways, he's a really fast test to demonstrate that the crybabies are lying: My Samsung Galaxy S has Skyhook on it. Google never blocked it. It works fine. But what Samsung didn't do is get the Skyhook discount by disabling Google Maps and Google Maps Navigation.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Yeah - as far as I know the only Android phones that don't let you choose your search provider are the ones that Microsoft have paid providers to use Bing on...
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?
Unless of course your company locks down any one specific thing (from what I can tell) you cannot change your default search provider. I've tried and I keep getting a little alert box that says the default cannot be changed. I had to go into the registry to set it to Google, and that wasn't necessarily a fun task (had to get UUID for Google search, remove Bing one, etc.)
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Luckily Microsoft have once again innovated, and started to fight this monopoly by monitoring how their customers interact with Google
Speaking from personal experience, my Galaxy S had Yahoo! as the default search bundled in the stock ROM from my provider...hell...it didnt even have all of the usual google applications. I dont see either Samsung or Telcel suffering or being locked out in any way from any google things...hell, there are even updates for the phones being rolled out right now...
Informative! Crap, replying to fix accidental moderation. My apologies.
the 'lock' is probably going to be reduces support if you replace the google pieces with Bing. That would make sense for something like the maps/locations the API might be Google Maps specific and zero effort is made to allow third party replacements of these services.
Pure and utter bullshit. I develop for Android. There is a generic intent that any map displaying on Android can listen for.
String uri = "geo:"+ latitude + "," + longitude;
startActivity(new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(uri)));
In what way is this locking anyone out?
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
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.
That's exactly why you need that huge amount of user data.
Yeah, and if it weren't for the high cost of steel, labor, and know-how, anybody could be building and selling aircraft carriers. Some things are hard to do and require an enormous investment. It is not society or government's job to make it so every tom dick and harry in their garage can get into any business they want and be on equal footing with incumbent players. What you are asking for is prima facie ludicrous.
If it was just the case of algorithms Google wouldn't be collecting all that data and there would be much more competition
Let's see, Yahoo, Bing, AOL, Ask.com, Baidu, whatever they have in Russia. And everyone of them is fighting tooth and nail and making money.
As for "better services, better interface, more convenient searching", how exactly would you improve that?
That's like sitting at a table in 2005 and asking "how do we make a better smartphone?" And then pretending like it can't be done when nobody at that particular table shits out an iPhone. I don't know but somebody does. And in that case, somebody did.
It's already pretty much as convenient as it gets.
I watched a super computer beat two Jeopardy champions live using advanced search algorithms and quick reflexes. Yes, unimaginitive one, it most certainly can be done better.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Your anal fixation is not the submitter or editor's problem.
The enemies of Democracy are