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Google Hit With Antitrust Lawsuit Over Default Search on Android Phones
itwbennett writes: "A class-action lawsuit filed Thursday (PDF) accuses Google of strong-arming device manufacturers into making its search engine the default on Android devices, driving up the cost of those devices and hurting consumers. The suit does not argue that device manufacturers entered Mobile Application Distribution Agreements involuntarily, but that the market power of Google compels them to. 'Because consumers want access to Google's products, and due to Google's power in the U.S. market for general handheld search, Google has unrivaled market power over smartphone and tablet manufacturers,' says the suit."
Because there is demand for a thing, business are forced to deliver it. Quick, someone stop it!
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Note that the plaintiffs are not the manufacturers, but two random owners of Android phones. This is nothing but lawyers abusing the U.S. legal system, trying to extort a settlement out of a big company.
When is the U.S. going to get around to tort reform?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
What this lawsuit requests is that operators of other search engines be allowed to pay phone makers and carriers to make a particular search provider the default on a particular make and model.
You should install Bing, Yahoo or other search apps?
I seriously doubt you are going to change the *GOOGLE* Search bar away from Google... But I bet you that the other apps have Widgets for their search services.
How do you change the default search functionality in Android?
Have you tried Googling for that information? :)
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Maybe you should ask the EU about their solution for Microsoft. In 2009, IE was easily removed from Windows, and for years prior it had been easy to set the default search engine to anything else. Yet the EU still wanted a browser ballot on first boot.
Note that the plaintiffs are not the manufacturers, but two random owners of Android phones.
The legal system requires the plaintiff to be the party who has been harmed. If something mostly harms end users, then end users need to be named as plaintiffs. This is why Righthaven's lawsuits failed: the company refused to add the actual copyright owner to the lawsuit.
If I install GNU/Linux in a virtual machine, I still get Bing when I tab back to Windows. If I install GNU/Linux on the bare hardware, I lose access to applications on which I depend that aren't usable in Wine.
Also, the fact that it gives a different set of results to everyone based on what information they've spied about you is a big problem. No longer can you give a search term to someone else with the knowledge that if they do the search they will get pretty much the same results.
Duck Duck Go is useful for that reason too.
So... you buy an GOOGLE Android phone. You buy one that has GOOGLE apps preloaded, because you wanted them. But then you're upset that GOOGLE search is the default, and it requires effort to change that? .....what?
Nah, it's ok that Google is strongarming manufacturers to not include 3rd party apps that compete with Google's.
It's perfectly acceptable that Google is stripping away privacy features from their phones.
BUT DAMN IT I WANT MY CHOICE OF INTERNET SEARCH!!111eleventy!
*facepalm*
The stupid... it burns!
I don't know about Bing. But duckduckgo is very anonymous.
https://duckduckgo.com/
If you follow the links on the right side of the screen, they'll show you the many ways in which Google breach your privacy and they don't.
I'm not sure there's any specific demand for Google search per-se on mobile devices. For a search feature, perhaps, but if a phone were to be shipped with Bing installed and Google search disabled, few people would notice beyond the non-search features that for some reason Google bundles into their search app.
I disabled Google Search on my phone a while ago. The reason, bizarrely, is that voice dialing is implemented by that app, and voice dialing has become so awful lately (unusable, actually) that combined with my temper when I get frustrated I consider it a dangerous feature to have even available as an option when I'm driving.
Yes, you have to disable Google Search to disable voice dialing. No, that doesn't make any sense.
But you can do it. And the only thing you notice related to search itself is that the largely unnecessary search box disappears from the Android main screen. Google Now obviously disappears too. And the next time you reboot, if you installed the Bing app, you'll find the search box has reappeared, only now it searches with Bing. Which is odd.
And as someone who now uses a phone with Bing search installed instead of Google, I can honestly say that there's no advantage one has over the other. Not when it comes to actual search, anyway. And I doubt my mother would notice either.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.