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.

Comments

Better explanation

[kav2k]

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".

Re:Better explanation

[ledow]

Yeah, sorry, even with crap translation, it doesn't read like that to me.

What they want is to be bundled as the default for everything by default. It doesn't really say that Google are strong-arming them into only ever providing Google and nothing else. There's nothing stopping Yandex putting out Yandex Android with all the defaults changed, but they'd have to convince phone manufacturers to use it, and then access to Google Play Store isn't guaranteed (but if it uses Android, you have a legal right to use the store as it says so in the Play EULA... like cheap tablets that don't get the official Google Play go-ahead and don't bundle it, Google aren't stopping you installing it yourself if that's what you want to do - and they don't even need to go that far... how many other types of machines are you allowed to connect to the iTunes app store and download your stuff with?).

Sorry, but it sounds like sour grapes to me. And it's a lot of waffle surrounding that the fact the PEOPLE don't change the defaults, not that the defaults aren't changeable with a 5-second search of how to do so.

Comparing it to the monopoly market position of bundling IE on Windows in a captive market is just hyperbole. If Google said to manufacturers you can only ever sell phones with Android, if you sell a phone with anything else we'll stop giving you any of our Android products and you won't be able to sell them, the default has to be left at Chrome when you sell, we'll never remove Chrome from the Android system because it's "all one thing", and they owned more than 90% of the market, and Chrome had almost zero market usage outside of such monopolistic actions, then it would be comparable. They aren't. By a long-shot.

Nothing is stopping them selling a Yandex Android phone with Yandex as the default and Yandex app store. In the same way that many of the cheap Android devices worldwide do just that. The fact is, though, that they want the Google name for the App Store so they don't have to pay a penny for running that, and run stock Android, but still have their search engine be the default, and expect Google to jump in and help them when the system is all open anyway.

A Russian anti-trust probe...

[swb]

...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.