Slashdot Mirror
South Korean Court Rules That Phone Bloatware Must Be Deletable
_0x783czar writes "Starting this April, South Korea will require all phone vendors to allow pre-installed bloatware to be uninstalled. That's right, they will be able to get rid of all that pesky software without having to root their phones. According to press release by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, 'The move aims to rectify an abnormal practice that causes inconvenience to smartphone users and causes unfair competition among industry players.' They hope this will also increase the users' data storage and battery life. From the article: 'Under the new guidelines, telcos are required to make most of their pre-installed apps deletable except for four necessary items related to Wi-Fi connectivity, near-field communication (NFC), the customer service center and the app store.' It'd be nice if similar legislation were passed in the U.S. and elsewhere."
Good on anti-trust enforcement.
Pretty damn stupid on fan-death enforcement.
The South Koreans are officially light years ahead of the US in terms of internet connectivity and smartphones.
Not sure I'd consider bloatware to be "abnormal." Seems pretty ubiquitous in recent years. Deviant, warped, evil, insidious all work, though.
Keep dreaming.
Bloating phones with money-making unstable privacy-invading tracking crapware is their first amendment right, and we are required to be glad for it, because it saves us the hassle of ordering our unlocked phones online.
You mean I could delete the Satellite & PVR apps for the satellite TV and PVR I don't have?
That makes too much sense, such a law will never pass here. Not that we should even need such a law.
I bet they'd just bundle it all into one massive buggy bloatware "customer service app"
Motivate the carriers to remove the bloatware. They can keep it if they want. Don't force them. Let the free market decide.
The first bloatware app on the phone reduces your monthly phone cost (pre-tax) by 50%.
Each additional bloatware app on the phone reduces your bill by 50% of what is left. So 2nd app further reduces bill by 25% of original bill.
The idea being that each app cuts your bill in half. Just keep cutting in half.
Now they can game the system and raise prices to sky high levels, you say.
Ah, but that makes them look awfully anti-competitive next to their competitor's phone that has, say, one fewer bloatware app on it.
Put that rule in place, let the carriers figure it out, and I bet the bloatware problem will disappear quickly.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
It must be nice living in a free civilized country - free from some corporate tyranny.
We corporately oppressed people here in the US have to shut up and take it.
Don't do business with evil corporation, Mr. Libertarian?
Well, now. Wouldn't that be great! See, ALL of the ISPs have control of the market and unless I want to get on the waiting list at my local library to use the Internet computers, I'm a bit screwed. I wonder how a potential employer would feel if I responded to an email days later telling them I just got their email and is the job still open?
So, I bend over and take it! With my 1.5 mbps down and 0.29mbps up here in Metro Atlanta via AT&fuckmeT (that is THE Fastest DSL in my area. No really. Stop laughing. It is.). BUT I can get faster if I sign their stick-me-in-the-ass contract and get their UVerse ripp-me-a-new-asshole service with their shit TV! for just a $100 per month! Introductory-they-will-fuck-me-later rate.
Phone service - localized legislated monopoly. Cell? They're all dicks and it's an oligopoly.
I don't have cable because I can live without their tyranny.
Car dealerships - another localized legislated oligopoly.
If you really think we live in a free country here in the US, you have been been brainwashed too much.
See, the Bill of Rights ONLY applies to Government. Corporations, being people, and having almost unlimited resources compared to the rest of us, rule.
Son of a bitch! The pinko crazies have been telling us this for decades and I was blinded by the corporate propaganda.
One of my problems with Samsung phones is the software on them. I like them otherwise. I like them with custom firmware better. The manufacturer and carrier bloatware soaks performance and resources which could be used by the user. But I suspect it will only apply to S.Korean phones and not those sold through carriers in the US.
My last few phones have all been Google Play Editions, and I can't be happier.
I'd toyed with Cyanogenmod, but there's a breakeven point between the time I spend dicking with a phone to unlock and reflash it - then deal with any of the incompatibilities that come up (especially with things like NFC and cameras, as previous loading/updating Google apps), and just getting an unlocked phone for what I'd have paid my carrier for it after they sneak the actual cost into my bill.
Most people will never know. They're going to have a crazy launcher, and tons of bloat, and locked tethering, and who knows what the hell else shoehorned into their phone because AT&T-MobRision made a deal with ESPN.
Separate Internet Explorer from Windows?! That's impossible!
Really, don't they know that freedom is only important for corporations? Everybody knows that any time the interests of private citizens and corporations diverge, the proper role of a democratic government is to promote the interests of the corporations from which all good things flow. Here in the US we know how to do Democracy properly, the rest of the world should learn from our example.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Wait, how do they make more money with bloatware?
Everybody ignores the bloatware, installs the apps they want, disables the paid bloatware ones.
They waste money with bloatware, piss off users, slow down their updates, and cause people to hack their phones.
Dear South Korea: Can we borrow your judges?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
And yet again another restriction issued on businesses by the South Koreans, where the North has no such restriction.
This way I could get rid of all the stuff on my Android that Google wants me to have but will never use.
^ this in droves.
The OEM computer market suffers the same blight but at least we can re-image or uninstall. The issue is with phones if we re-image we can no longer have updates, which on an android platform (especially) is silly.
You can tell I'm a n00b - I replied instead of modding up.
'Cause now all somebody has to do is claim iOS is bloatware and Apple has to let them put Android on their iPhone (or FirefoxOS on their Samsung or whatever -- relative merits of platforms is not the point of this post).
Backdoor anti-DRM/anti-locked-firmware law for the win!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
There are people that would argue that a internet browser is just as important and integral on a modern smartphone as messaging.
I suppose it's a matter of perspective. I do a dozen searches of the web for every text message I get/send, but I'm not a teenager -- I just have the attention span of one.
What part of a Google account is required to install an .apk file?
cause people to hack their phones
So there is some positive?
Well, in many cases, they simultaneously hack their warranty.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Are you kidding? We're talking a cell phone. It has one primary function, which is to be a phone. I don't think anyone would think of the dialer app as bloatware, but even if it was deletable, it could also be installable.
Things not a primary function of a telephone that I can't delete:
Facebook -- fuck off and die already.
Dropbox -- like I'd actually use this for backups?
Gmail/hangouts/etc. etc. -- don't want it don't care.
Polaris Office -- like I really want to write/edit docs on my freakin telephone?
Slacker -- some stupid radio thing that randomly turns itself on. My car has a radio and my ipod connects fine. At least with Pandora, I get a choice to install it or not. This forced install of Slacker DECREASES the chance I'd ever use it.
Twitter -- FFS!
Flickr -- Ditto.
Friend Stream -- I don't even know what this is, but from the name, I'm sure it isn't anything I want on my phone.
Telenav -- my garmin is much more convenient and doesn't report my every move.
NONE of those things are phone functions. Making them deletable is totally good, right, proper ... half tongue-in-cheek, I'd say that there should be substantial criminal penalties associated with making them undeletable. I paid for my phone up front -- $550 pre-tax. There should be enough profit in that price point to leave out the crapware.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I am convinced the purpose of unkillable bloatware is more than just extra promotional money -- it's designed, in conjunction woth limited RAM, to cause browsers to be killed off when you switch to another app, like messages or phone, so that when you switch back the page must be re-downloaded (curious it isn't cached locally when the browser isn't running), thus aiding in using up your data cap that much faster.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Hopefully the US follows them one day. Ive had to root several tmobile phone just to get rid of all their junk Ive never used once I started running low on phone storage. One app would pop up after 7 days saying my phone had been on along time and I should reboot it soon, pretty useless. After the 5 tmobile apps I got rid of google plus, hangouts, drive smart, evernote, lookout security, a few streaming music services and a bunch more.
1.5 mbps down and 0.29mbps [...] is THE Fastest DSL in my area
You could always get a different area, as sglewis100, Anonymous Coward, and another Anonymous Coward recommend.
What do you want? Competitive mobile phone companies that are allowed to innovate in order to bring enhanced value to their customers, or some dirty socialist government regulation? The phone companies know what's best for us. Who are we to decide what programs and features belong on our phones?
how do I handle the inevitable flood of support issues form retards deleting their dialer?
"Go to the app store and type in dialer." Or "Go to the app store and tap downloaded apps, dialer, reinstall." Problem solved.
Cell phone?
I consider my Galaxy 3 a handheld computer with the ability to make phone calls.
Dice Holdings, parent of Slashdot Media, is a U.S. company, for one thing.
I buy Apple and Google devices - so no bloatware anywhere to be found.
Sure, I'd love to remove a few of the Apple apps.. but you toss them in a folder and forget they were ever there. They're small.
On a nonrooted device, you can "Uninstall updates" and then "Disable" for many of those applications.
This law says the apps have to be deletable, not that you are not allowed to put them on in the first place. No harm in putting the Apple maps app on there for example, if you can delete it and replace it with the Google Maps one or whichever other one you prefer.
CD, SD, USB, and FTP still work to get a competing web browser's installer onto a PC.
The fact that a lot of publishers of Android applications refuse to make their .apk files available from their own web sites, instead requiring users to obtain them through Google Play or Amazon Appstore.
I run Xubuntu (GNU/Linux) on a laptop with 1 GB of RAM and Android 4.4 on a tablet with 1 GB of RAM. I too have noticed that web browsers for Android tend to cache less than web browsers for GNU/Linux. Perhaps this is because the built-in NAND flash memory is much smaller than a PC hard drive and limited in erase cycles. A 1 GB cache is a lot more noticeable on an 8 GB phone or tablet than on even a 160 GB netbook.
are you saying "Super Bubble Pop 2" _isn't_ a systems application?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Keep dreaming.
Bloating phones with money-making unstable privacy-invading tracking crapware is their first amendment right, and we are required to be glad for it, because it saves us the hassle of ordering our unlocked phones online.
You know, I've read the Constitution and all Amendments several times, and I still can't find the clause that actually gives rights of any kind to businesses.
From what I can tell, the Constitution only mentions 3 entities: Federal government, State government, and the People. Of course, corporations did exist back then (the collusion between the East India Tea Company and the British crown was a large part of the colonists rationale for revolting, after all), so it's not like it was an oversight.
So... what's up with all this talk about business rights? Businesses don't have rights.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
what the subject said.
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Why not make it all deletable?
It's my damn device, if I want to go all scorched-earth on it and delete a bunch of shit it needs to function, that should be my right as the property owner.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Note further that the word "rights" applies to only one of the three entities you mention - the people.
Governments, both State and Federal have "powers", but they don't have "rights".
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
They could just make one monolithic wifi+nfc+customer service+app store+bloatshit app that now satisfies the requirement that it is necessary to run the phone, and still doesn't give people what they actually want.
I don't usually support laws to handle this sort of thing. But if you are going to make a law, a better one would be that your phone must come with the option to run a stock android OS.
Most of the non-technical smartphone owners I know (iOS or Android, doesn't matter) are incapable of doing any of the things you mentioned. They have no idea what bloatware means, nor do they have any understanding of the pros/cons of it. For the most part, they are even afraid of those settings menus provided by the OS. You really think the telcos are not profiting from added software layers to these customers? Really?
I'm a Sr. Systems Engineer for one of the top handset OEMs, ergo I must post this as AC...
The OEM bloatware is one thing, the corporation that I work for is going to start phasing it out in 2014 because they've finally come to the conclusion that they will never make enough money from secondary app/music stores and other OEM add-ons to even break even on the costs of maintaining the requisite backend systems. I don't know about other OEMs, but as with the market finally being saturated and margins heading into the era of being continuously squeezed going forward, I would not be surprised to see other OEMs heading in that same direction...
That being said, do not look for the U.S. carriers to follow suit. With the possible exception of T-Mobile now, they are being run/managed by a cartel of utter morons.
You wonder why it takes so long to get Android OS updates? Often there are "custom" carrier requirements that have to be met/tested, but the long pole in the tent is always the 3rd party bloatware providers of which the vast majority are of very questionable quality/reliability are always behind the 8-ball updating their apps, doubly so when OS updates change APIs their apps use.
You ask why Telenav/rebranded Telenav/other navigation app is pre-loaded on the phone? It's because the program mgrs. that control 3rd party bloatware are convinced that their customer base is so stupid that they will pay an MRC for a navigation app that is very inferior to Google Maps, although usage rates are minimal/never rise above some miniascule percentage that might accidently fire the app from the icon to see what it is. Many of other bloatware apps never rise above a 1-2% usage rate, but even that is based on what is usually a one time use.
People above have complained about Dropbox/Lookout and other software being preloaded; while these are competent apps that may be useful to some, they get preloaded because they don't charge the carrier's anything to pre-install and give them some cut for any user that actually buys the app/signs up for an MRC/pays for the service. The carrier doesn't give a rat's ass because it doesn't cost them anything, they might make a buck and they don't care if they use up the storage memory YOU paid for.
If you don't like it, root the handset and un-install what you don't want, or load a custom ROM that is bloatware free. With CyanogenMod or the latest tools available from XDA-Developers it's not any more difficult that following the instructions that come with Ikea furniture, maybe easier...
Amen. The other dirty little secret of American history that they don't want you to know is that corporations in the past were subject to a LOT more limitations than they are today. They could only exist for a set period of time, for instance. They could not own other corporations. They were formed for one purpose and one purpose only. If they were found to be not acting in the public interest they could be forcibly dissolved.
So when "conservatives" (the usual corporate apologists) tell you that they want to stick to the original intent of the Founders, you might want to point out to them all the parts of what that means that they choose to ignore. This country wasn't perfect when it was founded, and not everybody was as free as the American Exceptionalism crowd would like you to believe, but back then at least some people actually were free, as opposed to everybody living with the illusion of freedom that we have today.
There is a market for people like you... It's called "dumb phones". As for smartphones, I think the telcos should focus on making typical users happy, and not go to extreme lengths just to satisfy a few Slashdot purists over an inane issue like this one.
How is making what you don't want to have on the phone making people happy?
A person might well use twitter and never touch facebook or dropbox -- let that person install what he or she wants. Why force them to have those apps on the phone, potentially gathering data even if it is "disabled" -- whatever that means.
I don't particularly want a dumb phone, but none of the things I listed are things I want. I want things like Red Phone and Text Secure, Boggle, a calculator, web browser, kindle, drink mixing app, etc. etc. In fact, I've managed to download a bunch of stuff I actually want, as have billions of people around the world. I just can't get rid of the crap I don't actually want without rooting the phone. Which is absolutely ridiculous.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Even non technical users have friends.
Those friends tell them at a minimum, to disable the bloatware in the settings, and never
use those icons.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
This may be nitpicking, but the title itself seems to be incorrect: this isn't a court ruling.
This is a guideline released by the government authority who is in charge of telecommunication policy. It's an agreement between the agency, three biggest carriers (SKT, KT, U+), three Korean phone manufactures (Samsung, LG, Pantech, etc.), and Google (Curious why Apple is missing). Probably not legally enforceable (How can you define "bloatware" in a legal term?) but at least it's a good starting point.
Yes, I RTFA'd, and I can read the press release written in Korean. :)
And do computers usually come with apps you cannot uninstall? If it is a computer that functions as a phone, it should function that way. But it doesn't because unless you root it, it behaves in a very non-computer like fashion.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
... phone bloatware is only for old people.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
I have a phone on my shelf that was perfectly serviceable.... until X phone company decided to "upgrade" its software, including preinstalled apps, that just happened to completely fill up its memory and ask for more. After complaining to the company that this had killed the battery from the constant "updates necessary" alerts, their advice was, naturally, to buy a new phone.
There ought to be a law....
But they could just as well have bundled it as an extension to SSL rather than a separate ActiveX plugin.
So with support for IE 6 ending in 15 months, why doesn't the government just decide that ActiveX with homegrown crypto is old and busted and TLS with homegrown crypto is the new hotness?
Mitt Romney was right. Corporations are made up of people. If you trample on a corporation, by proxy you are trampling on the people that make up that corporation.
As for smartphones, I think the telcos should focus on making typical users happy, and not go to extreme lengths just to satisfy a few Slashdot purists .
Making Facebook, Twitr apps and the like deletable can hardly be said to be going to extreme lengths, it's not like it involves any extra work to accomplish that goal, if anything it would mean less work, and there can be Facebook and other bloat pre-installed for those that want it and those of us that do not can remove it without having to void the warranty by rooting/jailbreaking. This benefits a larger amount of owners than the current prevalent model and might possibly have a minor negative effect on the telcos.
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
It's like a communist grocery store compared to a US mall.
You say that as if a complete absence of hipster brats and other mall rats is a bad thing.
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
I dont want some obscure social networking app to just be integrated into my NFC or WiFi driver instead. Seriously though i bet this just pushes them to hide more crap so it's not obvious.
While it does list some restrictions, it's more of a whitelist. Anything the constitution doesn't say the government can do, it can't do.
...when's this getting ported to android? Can't wait.
15 months? Isn't it still April 2014, or did I miss something?
You appear to be right. Deprecating ActiveX in favor of a TLS cipher suite that any browser maker can integrate is therefore even more urgent.
According to Airdroid, my Galaxy has ~240 system apps (some of which seem to be OS-related, however) compared to 40 apps I installed myself.
Also lock:
While it does list some restrictions, it's more of a whitelist. Anything the constitution doesn't say the government can do, it can't do.
Such as, declare businesses as people, so they can end-run the Constitution.
The fact that the People let the government get away with such egregious violations doesn't change the fact they are unconstitutional.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese