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Google Faces Anti-Trust Probe In Russia Over Android
First time accepted submitter Mark Wilson writes Google has a new battle on its hands, this time in the form of a potential anti-trust probe in Russia. Yandex, the internet company behind the eponymous Russian search engine, has filed a complaint to the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). Yandex claims that the US search giant is abusing its position by bundling Google services with Android. It claims that users are forced into using the Google ecosystem including Google Search, and that it is difficult to install competing services on smartphones and tablets. There are distinct echoes of the antitrust lawsuits Microsoft has faced for its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.
That's why you can't stop using google, or have any other choices, or even change the search engine simply by yourself.
I'm pretty sure that yandex knows how to do all this, so claiming it's "difficult to install" must mean "difficult to compete".
E
Massive corporations are like empires - they rise and fall. What one day seems like an unstoppable force can shrink away. Look at IBM as an example, and more recently, Microsoft would appear much smaller (stock value, at least - perhaps undervalued?). Why am I saying this? Because Google have risen to their highest point, and can't grow any more. They've dominated search engines, yes - but the future of marketing is Facebook, and the like. So Google will shrink, which is why they're pushing so hard with driverless cars, and google's glass, etc. They need to diversify to continue growing, or even to maintain their size.
I agree with Yandex, but ultimately, there are companies out there looking to loosen Google's grip on Android, whilst moving forwards - even Microsoft are putting money into such startups. So justice may come along later as opposed to sooner, but Google will shrink, and so will Apple. Then we might see some real competition and innovation coming through, that more companies like Yandex will benefit from.
There is a post (in Russian) that explains Yandex's position better.
It's quite long-winded, but boils down to the fact that several phone manufacturers were told that they will be globally denied access to Google services if they ship a Russian regional version with Yandex's competing services pre-installed.
It's not just a matter of "in Russia, choose between having Google Play / Google services and Yandex", but "try to pre-install competitors in one market and we won't give you Google Play access anywhere".
It has nothing to do with 'difficult to compete'. It's all about "Hey, we like Android but we don't want Google forced down our throats." PERIOD Saying that the future of marketing is in the hands of Facebook and the like; what are you 12?
Yandex options came preinstalled on my international unlocked phone. I tried it don't like. It's like SeaMonkey for Windows trying to do too much in one browser. On the other hand, if I lived in Russia, I would use Yandex services for the simple fact they are taylored for Russia itself.
Google is linking several products tightly together - which is what Microsoft was taken to task for doing.
You can't ship a device with the Google Play store installed or available without also being required to have the default search engine for the handset set to Google. Two unrelated products linked by an exclusive requirement (exclusive being it excludes other products).
Android is fast becoming the only realistic third party handset OS you can source as a handset manufacturer - Apple doesn't license IOS, Windows Phone isn't viable for a lot of people, Blackberry are ... well, Blackberry, and the rest are bit players with no market penetration at all.
Sure, you can go with a lesser known app store, but you lose a good chunk of apps in the process. So its either go with the popular app store on the popular handset OS and live with restrictions on unrelated things, or go on your own and effectively marginalise yourself.
So tell me, in what world did Google tying the default search engine (and thus ad displays) to the use of an unrelated product on the most successful licensable OS become acceptable?
Let me be the first to say that Yandex sounds like a bunch of whiny losers if this is their comparison. Google isn't imposing anti-competitive contracts on OEMs and using secret APIs to give their products a home turf advantage. They've open sourced the entire OS and most of the problems getting a competing product on an Android device is due to OEM malfeasance.
If Microsoft had competed with Be and Netscape back then like this, I'd be running Firefox on BeOS R10.5 not Windows 7.
... which means what for Google's bottom line? What is the ad revenue in Russia at this point? I'm guessing it is less then what google gets from Spain. So... who cares.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
For me, it is very, very sad, but Google seems to be becoming a very abusive company. The days of "Do no evil" seem to be ended.
I'd like to see a version of every handset with Google removed completely. To me its nothing but a nasty piece of spyware.
What if Samsung released Galaxy versions without the Google spyware? Would Google stop them also releasing a Google Play version?
Time for anti-trust actions across the world me thinks. That POS spyware has long been an irritation to me. It's on my wifes phone and I know damn well all her data heads off to servers for every app, because she does not read the permissions, and Google won't produce a proper privacy layer because that would undermine their own spyware.
Yandex is obviously only looking out for itself, but that aside, anything that applies some negative pressure against the Google steamroller is a good thing for the rest of us outside Russia.
Google's irresistible brand of "free" heroin that nets them billions in revenue while throwing our privacy to the dogs needs some strong resistance. Predictably, the Google addicts aren't interested in resisting at all even when it's for their own good, so Yandex's adverse PR helps even if it's being done for the wrong reasons.
The usual principle applies --- trust no company anywhere, or at least no megacorp.
Or are the rules different in Russia, that you don't have to be a monopoly in order to come under antitrust regulations?
Thay the chairman of Google is Richard Stallman . They do not do evil . They are a non profit organaization truly commited to a better world . Its the Free software foundation thats making those spyware phones only for world dominion . Such an ignorant world .
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Breaking news : Scientists have now mapped the gene that makes them map genes.
That's why you can't stop using google, or have any other choices, or even change the search engine simply by yourself.
I'm pretty sure that yandex knows how to do all this, so claiming it's "difficult to install" must mean "difficult to compete".
E
You do know that you are echoing Microsoft's exact argument in the EU antitrust case against IE bundling?
It does indeed sound similar to the unbundling issues that Microsoft had in the EU. The solution was Windows N, which I actually rather like. It's the same as normal Windows, but without Media Player and Media Centre which I don't use anyway. As an added bonus you don't need updates that target WMP and WMC specifically either, and don't get prompted to upgrade them whenever a new version comes out.
It's a shame more manufacturers don't ship it, but I suppose from their perspective they want a media player to be installed by default and can't be bothered to find and support one themselves.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Wat?
...is jab in the back with an AK-47.
At this moment of global history, can anyone take a Russian anti-trust probe seriously?
Between Putin's crony capitalism, the sheer amount of corruption in Russia and the geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West there's a whole laundry list of reasons to not believe that an anti-trust probe of Google has is honestly motivated.
So iPhones should be banned outright since you need to jailbreak to make these changes?
If you don't like play services, then replace them. Android is there, in the open for you to modify.
I'm not sure how this complaint can even get made when what Apple is doing with iOS is 1000x worse in terms of restrictive behavior.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
If you're too stupid to understand how the 'H' key on your keyboard works and what it's for you should probably stop posting on slashdot and just play in traffic instead. The world doesn't need another illiterate.
Microsoft also had put on it the restriction that that they were no longer allowed to restrict what OEMs could install with the OS they shipped to the end user - sounds familiar, doesn't it?
As I understood it the difference is that Internet Explorer was a web browser that could not be uninstalled, and while individuals could and did install other web browsers, the Microsoft OS only used Internet Explorer to do its updates/upgrades via Internet Explorer.
While in this case, the issue is choice of search engine in the Android OS. And that can be (and is) changed by the individual. Unlike the Microsoft case, upgrades occur through the OS not the choice of search engine. There is no vendor lock in, only a default choice.
That's a completely different discussion, since this one is about handset makers and sellers being restricted in customising the handsets in order to promote tied products, while your point is about users being restricted in customising the handset themselves.
Actually, MS claimed that even they COULDN'T unbundle IE from Windows for many years. Only when it was demonstrated in court that it was possible did they backtrack.
The fact is that MS didn't give you a choice. The only choice was to suffer the install of IE, ignore it repeated attempts to be the default, and have to leave it installed forever handling some things that it never needed to be handling.
And then the EU quashed all that crap and made them put a browser choice screen on every PC in the EU for several years to counteract it.
Cool story, bro!
"Difficult to install" = "Difficult to give hardware manufacturers a reason not to install".
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i dont see that. i have 2 devices totally uncoupled from Google. ( cant even install Google services if i wanted too )
With Microsoft there were only what two operating systems at the time, Windows and OS/2.
With cell phones and tablets there are a lot more choices, so don't buy android if you don't want Google.
I think one of the reasons Amazon's phone failed was because it was tightly coupled with the amazon echosystem and not the google echosystem---the same exact phone sold by "google" [e.g. marketed as "nexus" line] (even at the same price) would've done MUCH better in the market. It's not just "uh oh, you're bundling your services with the apps"... it's that people actually *want* those apps and services and often wouldn't buy the device otherwise.
Also, plenty of manufacturers roll their own Android, so what are they complaining about? If you don't like it, recompile your own and convince folks to use it.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Why is Apple given such a teflon pass on this by regulators? There are multiple iOS apps I despise but am unable to uninstall.
So your saying that despite the fact that Google already provides an open source version of their OS, that they don't tie you to their store (or the bundled search), that they must also come out with a version that only bundles the things that you want; otherwise they are anti-competitive?
As you mentioned, it's not tightly integrated into the system as you can clearly get a version without Google services and search (which is a Google service).
It's like a company that makes spreadsheet software arguing that people who buy MS Office for word and powerpoint shouldn't have to be forced to have excel.
"Wat?" is a perfectly acceptable response to the GGP's schizophasia.
you can ship android WITHOUT google products though.
it's not really googles fault nobody wants to do it.
big companies that have done it include Amazon(kindle fire) and Nokia (Nokia X - and yes this is the part of nokia that microsoft bought so that line is effectively killed and never sold in euro/usa . ironically enough you CAN buy it in Russia. so you can buy an android device without google services, google search or any of that).
it doesn't ship with the google app store though, so what do they want? that google sells phones that come with some google but not all? what about the other appstores then?
and yes I've had a nokia x for some 8 months now.. it's not great and i did hack the google store into it. very cheap though.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
No link to obamasweapon.com? You're obviously one of THEM, trying to misdirect us.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You can disable the included applications on an Android device, but device manufacturers tend not to include the "root" tools needed to reclaim the SSD space that they occupy.
I don't know about Russian law, but in America, "Difficult to Compete" isn't illegal. "Having a monopoly" isn't illegal either, otherwise Microsoft would have a serious problem with Excel, and Adobe with Photoshop.
Abusing a monopoly is illegal. Saying "you can't have this unless you buy that" can be illegal. Saying, "we'll charge you more if you buy from our competitors" is illegal. Owning a large company and not donating to senators is technically not illegal, but it leaves you open to intense anti-trust scrutiny.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
you know, these pieces of shit need to get over it.
don't see them suing apple over ios - i mean, with ios, you don't have choices of app stores, etc. and the "difficulty" in changing the browser or search engine is about the same as android.
at least with android you can use alternative app stores if you want.
But a big part of Android is the huge app ecosystem. Can you get that without Google's other products?
So your saying that despite the fact that Google already provides an open source version of their OS
They don't have an open source version of their OS. That is, the open source version is limited, and missing a lot of functionality.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm pretty sure that yandex knows how to do all this, so claiming it's "difficult to install" must mean "difficult to compete"
And I'm pretty sure Netscape also found it "difficult to compete" with Microsoft (and it wasn't even difficult to install!). But brilliant observation there, Sherlock, anti-competitive behaviour (and leveraging dominant market positions in other, not necessarily related sectors, and bundling) makes it difficult for others to compete, how utterly shocking!
This lawsuit is being placed in a country where insider trading is allowed.
If iPhone market share rose to the point where they have a dominant market position that can be used to gain advantage in other markets, then the iPhone should indeed become the subject of antitrust investigation. Until then, no.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The OS is still open source. The kernel is GPL and the libraries and many frameworks are either BSD or some other Apache-like license. Some of the applications they put on top of the OS, like Google Play, GMail, etc, are closed. Even Chrome is mostly open, released as the Chromium project. And it's based on WebKit, anyway.
Basically, though, everything that isn't particularly tied into the google ecosystem is open. There's really nothing stopping Yandex or anyone else from making an Android version tailored to their needs. They could fork Replicant, maybe.
Microsoft was forcibly bundling IE with Windows. You couldn't have Windows without IE. But you can absolutely have Android without Google Play. It's one thing to say "Microsoft make it so you can have Windows without IE." It's something else entirely to say "Microsoft keep doing all the work on IE, but let us slap our name on it and point it at our services."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
As I understood it the difference is that Internet Explorer was a web browser that could not be uninstalled, and while individuals could and did install other web browsers, the Microsoft OS only used Internet Explorer to do its updates/upgrades via Internet Explorer.
That was part of the argument, but the bigger part was that IE was free (subsidised by the OS cost) and bundled with the OS, which made it almost impossible to compete with. Netscape was the incumbent with the dominant market share in the browser market, but they charged $30 (I think), or free for noncommercial use. IE was free, which got them most commercial customers (they were paying for it with Windows and had no option to not pay for it if they didn't want it). It was preinstalled, which got them the non-technical users (who wouldn't think to install a different browser).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's not so much that people want the Google apps, it's that they want third-party apps. Have you ever looked in the Amazon App Store? It's a wasteland compared to Google Play. Google has successfully convinced people that selling an Android app means listing it in Google Play. This means that successful phones have to have Google Play installed, but if you want to preinstall Google Play then you have to also preinstall a big bundle of other Google stuff.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Waaaahhhhh, we're too fucking stupid to take the android source code and modify it so that we can do what we wanttttt!!! Bwaaaaahhhh, Waahhhh Wahhhh /inserting-pacifier.
Because antitrust regulators generally don't care about companies with around 20% market share? The entire point of antitrust regulation is to ensure that there is a functioning market. If you have a small enough market share that you can't impose your will on the market without suffering a loss of sales, then there is no need for regulators to get involved. If you have the 80% market share that Android enjoys, then there's a lot more potential for evil.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's all about "Hey, we like Android but we don't want Google forced down our throats."
To be precise it's "Hey, we like the Google Play store (and perhaps other parts of the Google apps bundle; that's not clear) but don't want Google Search". Because you can absolutely use Android without Google. It's open source, Apache 2 licensed.
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, on Android, but don't speak for Google. I'm not offering any opinions on the Russian complaint, just clarifying what they're complaining about, as I see it.)
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Its all about Kiev and our sanctions. Its not a technical issue. Kleptocracy.
It is acceptable because Google are not a monopoly.
As to why Android has Chrome installed, well it is a web browser and Google (at least not yet) can't read your mind and unlike a certain company you can easily remove it or just don't use it and/or install your own.
Err let's see. Select the Apps store icon. In the search box type "web browser" and low and behold you have a selection of web browsers you can install, Tap on the web browser you want to install and when prompted press the "Install" tab. Of course if that is too hard for some people then why do they have an android device in the first place. Good grief even Apple tablets and phones have their own "Safari" web browser installed by default and if you want a different browser you can very easily install one and installation is pretty much the same way you install on an android device.
Separate products like napkins, tables, cups, ketchup packets that you must purchase from McDonald's
Microsoft's intent was to charge for Internet Explorer as part of Microsoft Plus!. It was Netscape giving their browser away for free for non-commercial use which made that impossible.
This seems to be the fundamental difference between the US attitude and the rest of the world. In Europe the issue of Media Player having to be there and be the default media player as enforced by contract was an issue, which resulted in the Windows N editions. In the US that was never considered a problem.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So your saying that despite the fact that Google already provides an open source version of their OS
They don't have an open source version of their OS. That is, the open source version is limited, and missing a lot of functionality.
Then add them! Amazon seems to be doing just fine with Fire OS
Umm... You can certainly build an Android phone without Google - Amazon does it. If you want to access the Play store, that's another story entirely.
So your saying that despite the fact that Google already provides an open source version of their OS
They don't have an open source version of their OS. That is, the open source version is limited, and missing a lot of functionality.
The only functionality it is missing is the stuff that yandex is complaining about Google bundling.
No, you don't get the automatic Google account provisioning in AOSP. Or Google Play. Or GMail. Or Google Calendar. etc.
Just what do you think a Google-less android would look like?
I don't get the complaint. The non-Google parts of Android are FOSS. Other companies even have made competing forks of it as a result. If MS had done the same thing with Windows back in the 90s there would have been no need for an antitrust lawsuit. If you wanted Windows without IE you could just recompile it yourself, and even sell it if you wanted to.
Probably not, because those apps depend on a lot of Google's other products. It's not just the play store to obtain those apps, it's also Play Services, Gmail, Youtube, and Maps. If you were to remove those apps, you'd actually break a lot of apps that get distributed via the play store.
- Without Play Services you'd break a LOT of apps as it provides a lot of API extensions not found in base Android (the reason these functions are built into Play Services rather than AOSP is so that Google can continue providing OS functionality updates even when the manufacturer will not.)
- Youtube provides video services to a lot of other apps.
- Google Maps provides mapping services to other apps (e.g. gas buddy, fitness trackers, etc.)
- Gmail provides a sync framework that some other apps use
You can disable these apps so that the icon disappears from the app drawer (it's only visible in settings > app info) which leaves the libraries behind and prevents the app from running, but if you were to remove them entirely then you'll break a lot of apps.
Well, google play requires a google account. Google play is part of Google, hence I see no problem with google play requiring the installation of other google components.
Does it (technically) requires/forces Maps? GMail? Inbox? Hangouts? Chrome? Of course not.
I don't know the specifics(legal/contractual requirements by Google Inc to include google play in a device) ,but it's pretty trivial for the user to replace those components, or bundle alternatives. (Not sure if Google's contracts require the setting of a default from the get go, but I think no, at least I have seen a lot of devices that come with a browser other than chrome.
Also, what exactly do they mean by (default) search engine? Where do they apply it to?
Google play uses google to search its own store (cannot be other way), whats strange or unfair about that? Google play api is not open I guess, why should it be? Google Search/Now search with google's engine. no surprise about that,
I can even change the search engine on the chrome app.
There are other search engines I can use if I want to search the web, all I need is an app for that search engine, or a search app that allows to select the search engine,
Finally
I am not sure about this, but isn't search an activity that can be provided by a number of apps?
Bizarre but true: Microsoft ships android on some of their phones.
Anti-trust applies when you use a monopoly in one area to get a monopoly in another.
At the time Microsoft faced anti-trust, Windows had a monopoly, >90% of home computing. Apple was basically irrelevant, and nobody had even heard of any other computer. They used this monopoly on operating systems to get a monopoly on browsers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars#Internet_Explorer_5_.26_6
browser share of IE6 was 96% in 2002. We absolutely deserved an anti-trust remedy there, and we didn't get anything useful.
Microsoft did many other shady things, like selling Windows licenses at a discount to PC manufacturers, in bulk bundles at sizes greater than their manufacturing capability, so that Microsoft still got paid, but there was no marginal savings to shipping a computer without Windows, and Microsoft had leverage to punish the manufacturer arbitrarily by renegotiating this price higher. They were also taking actions to maintain their monopoly on operating systems. This never got any remedy either.
But the browser anti-trust case was about using a monopoly in operating systems _to get_ a monopoly in web browsers.
If Google blocked iOS users from Google Search in Europe, that might be worthy of anti-trust action because Google has a near-monopoly on search in Europe. However if Google forced Android users onto Google Search in Europe, it wouldn't be worthy, because they don't have a monopoly on phones and already have a monopoly on search.
In some markets like Russia and China, and US if you count "fire phone" which I don't, Google doesn't even have a monopoly on Android. But I don't see how that matters. The important thing is that they don't have a monopoly on phones anywhere. In fact the whole reason for them to buy Android and dump all this money into it was to prevent Apple from getting a monopoly on phones and extending it into other areas, because Google didn't think hypothetical anti-trust remedies would be adequate against Apple. If not for Android, most Google stuff would probably be frozen off iOS. The point is that nobody has a monopoly on phones, so the situation isn't like Microsoft's at all.
If Google did the same thing in the US, it definitely wouldn't be worthy of action because Google doesn't have a monopoly on web search in the US.
Doing the reverse (which they don't actually do!) of forcing every Android device to use Google search isn't worthy of anti-trust action because Android doesn't have a monopoly, so this action couldn't extend their nonexistent phone monopoly into a search monopoly. This is why Apple can force users to have pre-installed Apple apps, ban any competing app that "duplicates functionality on the phone" (including Google Voice, for a while), sell the default search engine setting to the highest bidder (like Mozilla does, to get most of their funding), etc.: Apple doesn't have a monopoly on smartphones so according to antitrust they can do whatever, and so can Google.
However Apple doesn't have a search engine, so there's no reason for Yandex to attack them with frivolous lawsuits. That's the only difference I can see.
This latest edition in the litany of Google smear pieces would seem to suggest Microsoft should have been punished for using the existence of IE in 90's (when Netscape had 80% share of the browser market) to get a monopoly on operating systems. It doesn't make any sense. It's sticky because people are completely muddle-headed, and are generically afraid of Google but can't articulate why, so any bogus reason presented looks appealing to them. We need to get past this and start making real arguments, because if there's actually a real reason to be afraid of Google this kind of attack won't do anything to address it. /. also seems to be making the mistake that anything which looks "bad" or feels "unfair" is probably illegal somehow, but if this were true MBAs would not exist because the profession wouldn't pay. It matters what the laws actually say. o
Verizon was certainly capable of loading their own app store, piles of Amazon cruft, Facebook, and much more typical carrier bloat. Who is the Verizon of Russia, and does this entity want Yandex or not?
No, because Apple makes whole product, sells and design it by itself. You can't find iOS from anyone else.
Android, in other hand.
OHA (Open Handset Alliance) develops it, sells it and designs it. Google only leads development and offers Play store, that is only requirement to be preinstalled for OEM to use "Android" trademark.
But Google offers support if you take all Google services and make them default, but your device needs to get trough Google brand certification.
But you can make a handset with own applications for search, maps, email etc and call it Android as long you offer the Play pre-installed, nothing else. As everything else is available trough Play store by Google.
So can Google be sued from requiring to install Play store to use Android trademark?
Can google be sued when OEM wants to get support from Google by requesting Google own special brand program?
Microsoft does same thing, since Microsoft got a judgment where it was found guilty, from denying what OEM could install with windows, it made a change. And since then Microsoft has Windows branding certification where every application OEM installs requires to be tested by OEM if they want to get "Comes with Windows" marketing support from Microsoft. And government can't do anything about it as law allows corporations to protect their brands and products.
So can Google be sued from doing same as Microsoft does, that government can't even touch?
Well, it is in Russia now and things can go differently by their laws of dominant market positions etc.
Sure, you can go with a lesser known app store, but you lose a good chunk of apps in the process.
Name a few?
The big problem you have is that more and more apps are building on the Google APIs, so beyond replacing gmail or the calendar, you have a big compatibility problem.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Clarification: Name a few apps that you cannot find in "lesser" apps stores.
Neither was Microsoft.
Be, Red Hat, Apple and others all had competing products on the desktop OS front, and Netscape had a competing product in the browser market.
"Monopoly" was long ago redefined to mean "dominant market position", which google certainly has, in the context of anti-trust law.
As I understood it the difference is that Internet Explorer was a web browser that could not be uninstalled, and while individuals could and did install other web browsers, the Microsoft OS only used Internet Explorer to do its updates/upgrades via Internet Explorer.
While in this case, the issue is choice of search engine in the Android OS. And that can be (and is) changed by the individual. Unlike the Microsoft case, upgrades occur through the OS not the choice of search engine. There is no vendor lock in, only a default choice.
No, this had nothing to do with the EU case at all. The EU case was only about "bundling advantage". The old "IE is integrated into Windows" story is from the much much much older US antitrust case against Microsoft (soon 20 years old), and has not been the case in Windows in a very very long time.
In modern Windows IE and Trident is "integrated" in Windows in exactly the same way as fx Safari and Webkit on OSX. That is, there is a HTML renderer system component that the system and apps relies on being there and can not be removed without causing issues, but it is not the web browser (IE or Safari), which both can easily and completely be removed and/or replaced.
There is a reason most claims today about "IE being integrated" are very unspecific about details, because it is not.
Actually, MS claimed that even they COULDN'T unbundle IE from Windows for many years. Only when it was demonstrated in court that it was possible did they backtrack.
The fact is that MS didn't give you a choice. The only choice was to suffer the install of IE, ignore it repeated attempts to be the default, and have to leave it installed forever handling some things that it never needed to be handling.
And then the EU quashed all that crap and made them put a browser choice screen on every PC in the EU for several years to counteract it.
The case where MS claimed this is very close to 20 years old now (US antitrust case from 1998). And this had nothing at all to do with the EU case, it was not in any way mentioned or claimed by any of the parties (and it hasn't been technically true in a very very long time).
The EU case about IE was only about the market distribution advantage Microsoft had of bundling it's browser with it's market leading OS, that the competitors didn't have access to do in a similar way, and is exactly similar to the Google situation on Android.
Why don't the manufacturers bundle their own stuff... Because it sucks lol. Apple don't have this problem because they kept their shit in an iron grip from the beginning. Google thought to go open and oppostite... This is what happens eventually. People wanted it and now hey want android and the hard work someone else did to get it there to play nice.
The hypocrisy is awesome as I type this on my iPhone. More expensive and prolly not a whole lot better but I will have consistency for the foreseeable future regardless of the country I choose to live in.
The kernel is THE operating system, it is 100% GPLv2 and Google can't do anything about that.
Nothing else belongs to OS than Linux kernel.
If you want Google play, you get it without other Google services. But what you add there to sell the phone?
Longer time ago there was HTC android phone with Bing,Bing maps as and hotmail.
Now Samsung is rumored to sell android where are bing and MS office, one drive and Nokia here maps.
... and the "difficulty" in changing the browser [...] is about the same as android.
I was under the impression (not that I've ever lowered myself far enough to use an iPhone) that any alternative browser you can get through the App Store is nothing more than a "skin" over the in-built Safari browser of iOS... no option for different rendering engines, etc. Was I mistaken in this understanding?
Just my $0.03 (At current exchange rates, my £0.02 is worth more than your $0.02)
It is just difficult to conceive why someone would even attempt to use other services on an Android phone. Essentially, the market does not see a need to do so. I agree....difficult to compete with free, works, awesome.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Is this an attempt at passing the Turing Test? If so, you FAIL!
Just my $0.03 (At current exchange rates, my £0.02 is worth more than your $0.02)
The big problem you have is that more and more apps are building on the Google APIs, so beyond replacing gmail or the calendar, you have a big compatibility problem.
I'll agree with this. I don't like the way Google is handling the whole Play Services thing.
I like the idea of having an auto-updated component of the API that works across OS versions. That is what is causing everybody to use it.
What I don't like is that this is closed-source and bundled with all the Google-specific stuff.
They really should have two pre-installed apps. One is called Google Play Services and it is EXACTLY that - APIs related to the Play store, or maybe some other Google-specific APIs as well (ones that don't fit into a specific app, like authentication and so on). That app can be closed service.
The other app should be some kind of Android Extensions app which is purely FOSS, and this provides stuff like webviews and all the logic you want to be easy to update. It shouldn't be tied to Google at all, other than Google being the main contributor. Being FOSS everybody could of course use it.
"Doing fine" doesn't equal losing money hand over fist ...
On the other hand, if I lived in Russia, I would use Yandex services for the simple fact they are taylored for Russia itself.
are they taylor swiffed as well?
Their main complaint here is not just the tie-in, but that it applies all across the regional markets. In other words, if some Android manufacturer makes a deal with Yandex to ship Yandex apps, or set Yandex as default search, on Android phones sold in Russia (which is quite reasonable, since many Russian users expect those anyway), they can no longer preinstall Google apps on their Android phones sold in US.
I'm kind of sick of you stupid fucking kids screaming that "android is open source so just..."
What if I can't root? What if there are no other mods? What if it breaks the functionality of the tablet because the stupidass android developers have the drivers tied into the user land instead of the kernel?
I feel like the grandma in that car insurance commercial. "That's not what this means. That's not what any if this means"
open source isn't open source if everything is broken or it's simply not possible. We had this same argument with manufacturers over wintel modems in the late 90s. And we pretty much won.
android is absolutely not what open source is supposed to be. It's a shame, a god damned shame.
Microsoft was competing against apple, IBM and Linux in the desktop market at the time they were declared a monopoly.
This. I'm in China for 2 months. I didn't think ahead that most of the features on my Android phone wouldn't work when I get here because all Google services are blocked.
It took me all of an hour to change my default search away from Google, Install an alternative app store, and replace all of my Google apps which require an online connection with an alternative.
4 weeks left here and I'll go through the process of re-googlefying my phone again. Though in theory I could do that now since the first app I downloaded from the alternate app store was OpenVPN.
You can't ship a device with the Google Play store installed or available without also being required to have the default search engine for the handset set to Google.
Yes you can. There was an active complaint by users a while back that Sprint (I think) were shipping Android devices with Bing as the default search provider.
What you can't do is ship the device with the non-google provided version of Android (i.e. Cyanogenmod) and have the Play Store preloaded. This is also while Google apps are a separate download for Cyanogenmod users.
Microsoft was taken to task for being a monopoly and then bundling apps anti-competitively. Google is not a monopoly and there are mobile devices a plenty with alternative OSes. Heck just look at China, a country where Android is the undisputed number 1 mobile OS, yet where Google is completely inaccessible.
That's why you can't stop using google, or have any other choices, or even change the search engine simply by yourself.
I'm pretty sure that yandex knows how to do all this, so claiming it's "difficult to install" must mean "difficult to compete".
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I am fortunate to be in Canada, where I can use optionally use the yandex search engine. It is as extensive or better than google. Please don't believe that google has exclusivity on intelligence and capabilities.
Right now, because my keyboard has Canada French layout, Google has decided I want their searches in French. I never selected that language, though the keyboard I use is standard for Quebec.
Google, stop being stupid.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada