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

"Difficult to install" == "Difficult to compete"

[gavron]

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

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.

Re:"Difficult to install" == "Difficult to compete

[Richard_at_work]

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?

Re:you can buy android without google over there..

[Maxwell]

"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?

Re:"Difficult to install" == "Difficult to compete

[Rich0]

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.