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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".
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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".
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?
...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.
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.
Those days never really existed except in the minds of those that believed the marketing dribble.
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.
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.
Somehow, I see this as a reaction to the sanctions imposed over the Ukraine mess. I think that someone in Russia is thinking that hitting Google will hurt the US Government in some way....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The problem is not that you can't ship with Google products, its that you can't ship with *some* Google products - if you want the Play store, you have to also have X, Y and Z - oh, and you must also send all search traffic to Google as well.
So basically, you either get to bundle the best app store and go fully Google, or you get to cause your end users issues by bundling the second best app store but get to use your own solutions for other things such as search.
Why should Google be allowed to tie the search provider for the phone to the app store provider for the phone? That's the kind of thing Microsoft got shat on for.
You could have argued that they may have existed in the beginning, but once Google did an IPO, that was the end of it.
Then again, if I remember correctly, Google never said their official motto was "Do no evil", but that was more like a goal they aspire to.
Amazing how an IPO can make all such aspirations vanish overnight, eh? :-)
"Why should Google be allowed to tie the search provider for the phone to the app store provider for the phone? That's the kind of thing Microsoft got shat on for."
Because Google is an independent business competing in a fiercely competitive market? And that gives them the right to bundle their product line anyway they want? Microsoft was a declared monopoly competing against no one in the desktop market - and actively attempting to prevent anyone from competing with them w.r.t to browser.
American analogy: why does McDonalds force me to use their french fries in a combo deal? They should be required to offer Burger King's fries, or cook the ones I bring form home for me! Where do I file my complaint?
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.
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.