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."

Comments

South Korean Government:

[i kan reed]

Good on anti-trust enforcement.
Pretty damn stupid on fan-death enforcement.

Re:South Korean Government:

[DickBreath]

Because IE 6 only runs on Windows.

Re:South Korean Government:

[Onuma]

Koreans are widely very tolerant, if not accepting, of their mandatory national (not necessarily military) service.

All of the soldiers I worked with over there had been amazingly professional, courteous, and capable. While I don't necessarily agree with compulsory service, they are allowed to defer it for some time in order to finish college, etc. At least it's a little bit flexible.

Well that settles it

[Anonymous Coward]

The South Koreans are officially light years ahead of the US in terms of internet connectivity and smartphones.

"if similar legislation were passed in the U.S."

[bob_super]

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.

Here's an idea

[DickBreath]

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.

GPE

[mythosaz]

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.

What?!

[Dachannien]

Separate Internet Explorer from Windows?! That's impossible!

Re:Nonsense.

[icebike]

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?

Re:It must be nice.

[Shinobi]

No, it wouldn't have been...

In 2004, I had 24Mbit/s down/1.5Mbit/s up ADSL2 here in Sweden. GOOD connections were fiber/ethernet already, thanks to Bredbandsbolaget and a couple of others, as well as some municipal networks.

Re:"if similar legislation were passed in the U.S.

[CanHasDIY]

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.