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Google Responds To EU Antitrust Claims In Android Blog Post
An anonymous reader writes Earlier today the European Union released a Statement of Objection against Google, asserting that the search giant's dominance violating antitrust rules and Android products hindering equal opportunities for market access among its rivals. Google has now released an official blog post in response to the Commission's proposed investigation. Regarding its Android devices, Hiroshi Lockheimer, VP of Engineering at Android writes: "The European Commission has asked questions about our partner agreements. It's important to remember that these are voluntary—again, you can use Android without Google—but provide real benefits to Android users, developers and the broader ecosystem." He continues: "We are thankful for Android's success and we understand that with success comes scrutiny. But it's not just Google that has benefited from Android's success. The Android model has let manufacturers compete on their unique innovations [...] We look forward to discussing these issues in more detail with the European Commission over the months ahead."
Too bad there aren't any other note apps to use on Android. Oh, wait....
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Is anyone surprised that a cloud based note system needs you to log in? If you don't want to sign in to google, don't use keep - it's not like it's the only way to store notes - there are hundreds of alternative note apps out there on 3rd party market places.
You don't need a google account to use android, you do if you want to use google's services. A bit like you need a Live account to use Microsoft's cloud services, and an iTunes account to use Apple's cloud services.
So don't use keep, use one of the dozens of grocery list apps, many available on the amazon app store and so requiring no Google account.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Every time I read about this EU nonsense with Android, I think about Nokia and Symbian. Maybe the EU is chapped because all the good smart phone OSs are developed in the US?
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
"It's a shame, what's going to happen to Germany over the next few weeks."
#DeleteChrome
You can use Android without Google services. But being technically right isn't enough when it comes to antitrust. Google uses its position to make using Android without Google services increasingly more difficult. More and more essential features are moved from Android OSP to the proprietary Google apps package (or added there without first showing up in AOSP), and the OS makes no provisions to use other services as drop-in replacements (i.e. transparently to other apps). For example, almost all apps which provide location based services depend on the Google apps package for the simple task of showing locations on a map, even though there are several other map services which could do the same thing, but have no chance of getting the necessary OS integration.
I don't think the point was this app specifically. The point is that Google tries their hardest to make all apps depend on Google's "services". Sure, it's possible to do without, but it's getting damn hard. And in addition to this they have completely forgotten everything about security implications. Try to install Android and hide your data from third parties. I bet you can't do it while using the phone for very long. I would guess that more than half of the apps in Play could be classified as malware if you define malware as something that spreads data that the user wants to keep private.
Different AC. Google Keep was a bad example. Take Qando, for example. That's a public transport app for Vienna. It doesn't need an account, Google or otherwise, for most of its functionality, but it does require the Google apps package or it will crash when it tries to show a map, which you can imagine is a pretty important function in a public transport app. There are lots of alternative map services, but almost all apps which show maps require and use Google's, and there is no way to make them use an alternative service. Google makes using Android without Google difficult, and needlessly so.
I don't think the point was this app specifically. The point is that Google tries their hardest to make all apps depend on Google's "services".
Keep was a FREE app written by Google. What do you expect? The shit is free.
Keep is less than 1% of the note apps available for Android. Almost all of those apps don't depend on any Google service. Some are adware. Some will phone home to someone other than Google with info gathered from your phone. Some you have to pay a small fee for. Some come with a degree of privacy and security. It takes time to sort out which is the best app, but if you don't like Google's services in your apps, don't install the apps that use these services.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
no, its the app-maker making it difficult to use without google, and for them is taking the "easy way out", no but seriously, why should a app-maker need to make it more difficult for themselves just because you want to have alternatives?
Nokia X, Xiaomi, Amazon and many Chinese smartphones all uses Android without Google.
On one side you have Android and Google people who will complain that Google is not doing anything wrong and have the right to lobby that is the case and on the other side you have the people like the gyro-copter letter carrier who think companies have no such rights and just shut up and accept whatever government regulations get placed on them.
I think nothing free is good enough! Almost all of the apps don't depend on Google!
Play Minecraft Play For Free
In the connected world, being locked out of Google play services basically renders android useless.
No, it's not the app maker's fault. Their choices are to support one map system (Google's) or to individually support several map systems (Google's and several others). With Google's almost complete monopoly, the answer is obvious. Designing the system that way from a monopoly position is anticompetitive. The correct way is to separate API and implementation.
they are not yet charging google for anything about android, considering the latest investigation took 5 years to make an charge we will see how in about that time how this comes about
now is it to google to show that they are not breaking any rules and that they can behave
> you can use Android without Google
No I can't.
Can I remove GMail, the calendar, maps, youtube from my phone? Nope.
Is it google's fault?
They are google's apps, they can put limitations on their usage/distribution. So in my eyes, yes.
Nice post, I enjoyed reading your blog. Keep up the work. This website http://coolgadgetscentral.com has something similar.
... its HQ isn't in Europe
Let's face it --- EU is jealous over the success of Google, and that Google happened to have its start in America and not France, or England, or Germany or Italy
... and no, I am not an American, and neither I am a citizen of any EU country either
... and no, I am not employed by, or in any way receiving any benefit from Google, or any of its subsidiaries and/or affiliates
The above is merely an opinion from a third party observer
I couldn't figure out why Google wasn't getting pissy AT ALL over Cyanogen forking and talking smack about them.. Now the other shoe has dropped: Cyanogen's fork (and the company's very existance) is Google's main anti-trust defense, at least at the OS level.
Now Google's ad business, that's a whole 'nother matter...
Google is moving more and more utilities to Play Services, which is not open source.
Play Services is not only about Google-related services, it is also about OAuth for instance.
Unknowing developers rely on Play Services, making their apps incompatible with pure-Android devices.
To solve this problem, an Open Source implementation of Google Play Services is being developed:
http://softwarerecs.stackexcha...
The Android issue is just a minor point in the EU's case, why doesn't Google talk about the fact that their search service pushes people over to their shopping service?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
You have completely lost me
... but I got a smartphone recently - a Samsung Ace 3 with Android. My impression is that the concept has huge promise, but that it is set up to disappoint massively, because although it is so-called open-source, you are not likely to be set free from the tie-in. This particular phone comes without Google Play (and as Google say: 'if it isn't installed from the start, you are not supposed to have it'), and all I can find on Samsung's equivalent is ad- and spyware. I have a suspicion the same holds for Google Play, but I don't know. Even if you download Google Play from elsehwere, it will not be allowed to run - it gets killed instantly
Let's see ...
The phone you got is from Samsung
It runs Android
It does NOT have Google Play
And if you want to install Google Play in it, that Samsung phone somehow deletes it, instantly
Am I stating the facts correctly?
The phone's only tie with Google is the OS ( Android )
Fact 1. The Phone is not from Google
Fact 2. Google Play is not allowed to be installed in that phone
But of course, that's not all ...
You just goota bitch about the evilness of Google, even if you have to make it up
Regarding that fucking phone of yours, Google's role is limited to the Android OS, and nothing else
So what the fuck are you trying to prove?
That Google is evil? Just because Google supplies that Android OS that Samsung uses?
That Google is a monopoly? How can Google be a monopoly if Google Play isn't even allowed to be installed???
You got tard for in between your ears, or what?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Try doing mobile banking without Google. My bank provides their Android App through the Google Play store and via no other channels. The same is true for a lot of other banks. Google has intentionally made sure that they control the app distribution channel, so useful devices need to have the Google Play app installed. Of course, the contract to have Google Play preinstalled means that you then have to have all of the other Google apps preinstalled on devices that you sell.
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I thought that the Android location stuff let any map application register for handling positions and addresses? I've certainly had the calendar app open OSMAnd on my phone from an address in an appointment. Are there other map APIs that don't support different service providers?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Way back when, MS were under fire over whether or not the browser was part of the OS.
It seemed to be agreed that the "right" thing for MS to do was to make applications separate from the OS so that other applications running in Windows could compete on a level playing field.
It would be anticompetitive if MS mandated that
- a PC with Windows could only ship if someone bought Office too (this never to my knowledge happened)
- a PC manufacturer who wanted to benefit from OEM OS pricing could never sell a PC without paying for a Windows license (as I understand it, this DID happen).
Fast forward to Android. You can have AOSP, a bare OS. That is free and open.
Or if you choose to go that way, you can get a phone which also has on top of that Google's suite of apps. This includes the usual google ecosystem, and also a load of services which make life easy for lazy app developers.
It's a free market but phones without the google stuff don't sell so well. Turns out people WANT google search, google maps, gmail etc on their phones, because they use the ecosystem.
I'm one of them. I don't use gmail because they strongarmed me - I use it because it works for me.
Have done for years. The fact that all their services are stitched together really works and adds value.
And guess what - they show me ads. Which I can choose to ignore, More useful ads than most, at least they're relevant.
Amazon are free to build a different set of stuff on top of AOSP, of course. Whether their set if stuff is as much use as the google set of stuff I don't know. MS could in theory build a complete alternative on top of AOSP too.
Maybe they will do that instead of Windows Phone one day.
But this whole argument doesn't hinge on whether there are all these alternatives. It seems instead to revolve around how successful google are. If they had just not been as good at all this, and got 50% market share, who'd care ?
They ARE a monopoly. By most definitions. But that's not illegal in itself.
Do they engage in anticompetitive monopolistic behaviour ? They don't force anyone to buy anything.
It seems that the argument goes that because their search is no 1 and has become so powerful, this creates an extra legal responsibility on them not to use it in such a way that benefits themselves over their competitors. It may be true that dropping off page 1 of the search page is damaging to a business, such is the success of google, but does that mean google are doing something illegal ?
Not being stocked by Tesco is damaging to a teabag brand. Does that mean selling Tesco own brand teabags cheaper is anticompetitive ?
If gmail was a separate silo from google search and they choose to buy adwords against "email providers" search terms, would that be OK ?
If gmail chose to spend their own money to be no 1 in the adwords column, that'd be their choice, Would that be OK ? They'd still get flak.
There seems to be an implicit assumption among critics that other google territories get free adwords but I'm not actually sure they do.
I often type "maps" meaning "I want google maps" and yet google maps isn't no 1.
Even with signed in personalised search that should have learnt what I want by now.
Seems to me like they are bending over backwards to be fair.
What is more telling to me is that google regard Amazon as their main competitor in search. if you want to buy something, and you search in Amazon, no other vendor gets a look in, regardless of their google rankings.
So as a small company trying to sell soccer boots (for example) my top 2 choices for hitting the big time are
a) sell through Amazon
b) optimise for google search.
As a vendor, which of those do you think gives me more control ? Is either of them free ?
What shady deal do I have to pull to get top rankings in Amazon ?
So are Amazon being anticompetitive now too ?
A lot of the EU posturing is just plain stupid,
Spain decided google news shoul
Probably the easiest way to sync your notes everywhere. Or did they need to make a new identification scheme just for keep?
Evernote is way scarier with all the permission that thing asks.
pen and paper...
and if you want your list in the cloud.. simply fold it and 'upload'.
done and done.
That only applies to "links", where an app switches to another app to show some data. Many apps integrate Google services directly. The most prominent example is maps, but also things like Google Cloud Messaging and authentication services. There is no API for registering alternative service providers that would then be used by these apps. The only way to replace Google Services is to be an impostor and use Google's package names, i.e. pretend that your implementation is Google's implementation.
Yeah, that is possible if you do it the right way. Some apps are written to directly call the google maps api. Of course, if you do this another maps program will not work.
I couldn't figure out why Google wasn't getting pissy AT ALL over Cyanogen forking and talking smack about them..
Much more basic: Ask your self, *WHAT* is google's business, what are they earning money from ?
They are not earning lots of money buy selling copies of Android.
Instead they earn money with their service: they probably earn a percentage of sales of apps on their store, and they earn tons of money through their data-mining/advertising.
So yet another fork of android doesn't mean less revenue for Google. It means yet another portable platform that will eventually log into maps.google.com, and ask about pizza, and earn them tons of money.
It's the same reason why google can at the same time support Firefox development (they pay them a good budget) and at the same develop their own browser.
That might sound weird. But it makes sens. Google isn't in the business of *selling* browsers. More browsers mean more people online eventually using their service, and thus means more indirect profits, no matter exactly were the browser came from, as long as it conforms sufficiently to standards (HTML5, etc.) and can use their service, and isn't completely married to a competitor service.
The only thing regarding to Android that would drive them mad a little bit, is if Microsoft decided to fork Android, and design a special fork that only exclusively works on Microsoft's services (Bing, Office 365, etc.).
Lukily for them, Microsoft did instead attempt to make such a microsoft-exclusive platform using their windows OS and we all know what kind of success they had with this.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yes, I agree that Adroid pushed Nokia to the panic!
Play Play Minecraft For Free On
It seems the EU has a blind eye for what Apple does. Which to me is more anti competitive then Google. But I think any of it is rubbish that the EU thinks every product Google or anyone else makes should be void of any supporting products by that maker. Does the EU really think people are so dumb they can't find apps they want, or change their search engine, or download another browser? The whole Microsoft litigation boggled my mind, and now this EU move makes that look small. I have no great admiration for Google, but I do see what Google is doing is anti anything. Of course you buy a Chromebook its going to have Google products on it, duh. Users most likely pick Google search the most because its been the go to search engine for how long? Does the EU not understand that maybe a product is dominant because people like it?
I wish it were so simple, but read this blog post about what recently happened to aprs.fi, a well-known service in the amateur radio community for mapping APRS locations (and many other movements e.g. ships). Google tries very much to make sure that you are using as many of their services as possible, and here access to Google Maps was denied entirely because they had provided the option to use OpenStreetMap and it was possible to go from there to Google Street View.
How dare they require that laws be obeyed! Damn commies!
You make it sound like the app developers have another option, but they have not. If you want to show a map in your app, as opposed to sending whatever you want to show to another app and have it shown there, then you're going to embed a map widget in your app. There is no generic map widget, where the user could choose the service provider and the respective widget would be instantiated by the generic widget. If you want to show a map, you instantiate Google's map widget, and then the only way to make your app work without the Google app package is for an alternative firmware provider to reimplement Google's map widget and use Google's package name, so that apps will use the reimplementation.
The problem here isn't that Google provides a service that app developers can use. The problem is that the service is bundled with the OS in a way which makes competition almost impossible. Google could provide the functionality to app developers as a library, which would ship with the apps, enabling them to work on Android without the other Google services. Or they could provide a generic widget plus an API for registering alternative service providers and then provide their own implementation in the apps package, allowing others to provide alternative implementations. As things are now, you can't transparently replace the maps widget with your own, unless you replace all the other APIs as well, because of Google's all-or-nothing policy regarding the apps package. Even if you did reimplement all Google services that are present in the Google apps package, there is no generic layer between the app and the services implementation, so replacing the services would require masquerading as Google, which no commercial service provider would dare.
Android is widely used today. However, due to its tie in with Google, it hinders technology evolution like Windows did. The EU anti-trust case will certainly force Google to open up which will allow other people and companies to add to Android. It could even be fixed without Google. For example, things like the browser being firmware will then no longer be possible (even though Google recently found out that this is a stupid idea all by themselves).
Are you sure they don't control "an app distribution channel" for Android? You can load other app distribution systems in. Not saying that Google isn't potentially a monopoly at this point, but it is hard to see where they have engaged in restraint given that you can layer anything on top of Android in place of play. Heck Microsoft is looking at .NET for Android.
My bank provides a web page for mobile banking .
Internet User: "You said they'd be left at the city under my supervision."
Google: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
How may web sites do you visit that DON'T have a link back to some form of Google? For example, my company's mail site hits a google.com address when you use the web mail interface. I am pretty sure that Outlook web mail was not created by Google. Being on Google's punish list is worse than being on their approved list.
Are you stating as fact that Google is preventing your bank from publishing their app to the Amazon store (or any other android app stores)? Isn't it more likely the case that your Bank chose to only publish to the Play store?
There is no generic map widget
I found this one after only a couple of minutes. I'm sure there are lots of other ones out there.
I wouldn't say it's the app maker's *fault*, rather that they looked at the Google Maps API and decided it was the easiest, probably the best documented and most likely gives the best user experience. They could (if they needed to target people not having Google APIs on their device) use an OpenStreetMap backend - there are plenty of libraries out there.
Thats because its a cloud service intimately tied to your Google account. If you dont want that, you should probably use another app designed differently.
It seems quite strange ti criticize Google for making an app that utilizes the Google ecosystem, rather than an app which directly competes with it. Perhaps we should criticize Microsoft for selling Microsoft Exchange as a service for Microsoft Windows, rather than implementing it directly on Red Hat.
The point is that Google tries their hardest to make all apps depend on Google's "services"
Utter bull. Go get any of the plethora of AOSP-based ROMs, and you can use any app you want.
Of course, MOST free apps get revenue from ads; and ads generally are going to rely on a cloud service, and that has to be provided by an ad provider-- hence play services. EVERYONE does this, though, Google isnt alone here.
The same is true for a lot of other banks. Google has intentionally made sure that they control the app distribution channel,
* WinPhone: Apps MUST be downloaded from the Microsoft Store
* iPhone: Apps MUST be downloaded from the App Store
* Android / AOSP: Alternative stores are explicitly allowed, though off by default. Apps may be sideloaded through a bootloader, through USB, through the official play store, or through third party app stores like Amazon's or F-Droid.
How, exactly, is Google the bad guy here?
This is quite early in a long process that, if followed, will result in a decision from the Commission which will set out its reasons in detail (and with reference to law) and dispose of Google's positions (accepting or rejecting them) with detailed reasoning. As long as that is done, Google is unlikely to find much support in a judicial review (and is likely to be hit with an adverse costs order as a result).
The Commission -- and Europe generally -- has a very different take on "nice" monopolies. Those are tolerated in the U.S. where there are no gross abuses of competitors and no gross harm done to consumers. Dominant parties -- monopolists, effectively -- are OK in the U.S. as long as they keep their prices broadly in line with what the much smaller parties offer. That avoids much litigation, which in U.S. courts is expensive to all parties and frequently results in surprises favouring the private company.
By contrast, Europe has been dismantling or heavily regulating even "nice" dominant parties, on the grounds that they *could* be abusive in rent seeking. No actual harm needs to be demonstrated to impose regulations (but it must be considered when assessing quantum in fines) so long as those regulations are in line with the law and are well reasoned with respect to allowing non-dominant players to compete. The Commission has broad powers to force revision of contracts, and will certainly look harshly at any scheme which makes it hard to switch from Google (or its partners or other customers) to another less-dominant player in the market on reasonable (and fairly short) notice.
There are plenty of industries which have had to make substantial changes to their business models as a result of Commission inquiries and decisions, including several of the markets in which Google is a large player. It's "Where's the Harm?" argument will not fly in Brussels, and is unlikely to heavily influence the observers from the U.S. that are likely to attend hearings. So they're probably just doing it to reassure their investors and to influence U.S. politicians, and try to add support to the "Do No Evil" marketing campaign.
It doesn't matter whether they did or not. The fact that they effectively control distribution of a number of essential apps means that they can then use this to force phone vendors to install other Google apps. Both US and EU antitrust law agree on this point: It doesn't matter how you came by your first monopoly, you aren't allowed to use it to gain a second.
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Google provides a map service. You dont have to have it installed AFAIK, and the app vendor does not need to use Google's API-- they could use Bing maps or another one, which some apps do.
Your complaint is about an API choice made by a dev, to choose the easiest and best mapping API out there (AFAIK-- others have always seemed worse to me but maybe Im wrong). That is not a google choice.
How many antitrust investigations happened to Nokia when they had the vast majority of the smartphone market in Europe? None? That's weird.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Because the moment someone offers something for free, it's met with suspicion. Windows Phone licenses are not free and iOS doesn't even have licenses. But Google gives away Android with no license fees required. And somehow that makes them less than legitimate.
Yes, the Open Handset Alliance exists, and yes, Google has an agreement with the OEMs who choose to receive Android from Google. It's no less damning than any agreements a Windows Phone licensee would have to agree to, an iPhone 3rd party hardware (like a charger) manufacturer, etc. The difference is the initial cost: nothing.
There are accusations that Google promotes their own services on Android. Absolutely, as do all the other mobile phone platforms. Windows Phone comes with Microsoft apps aplenty. iOS actually forces you to use their apps by default, if you click a link from email, it opens in Safari, no matter what other browser client you have installed. From a user standpoint, Google's additions are no more or less restrictive than their counterparts. None of Google's behaviors regarding Android are much different than how Apple or Microsoft treat their mobile platforms, except one.
Somehow, without something like a license fee, I think most look on Google's agreements as something less than a business transaction. They are cruel restrictions placed on an otherwise flexible product, iron chains that restrain the great freedoms of the OEMs, who chafe under the strict yoke of Google. None of this is true, it is merely perception, a perception that begins and ends with the lack of licensing fees for Android. If Google charged $5 per Android license install, none of this would be a problem.
Subject.^ It's one paragraph! I won't complain about comma splices. Just write it well enough that I don't have to go over a sentence three times and guess at what it *probably* meant.
Nice troll, citing a *google* app needing a *google* account.
Google's blog post reflects its core business: marketing. It's like reading a political party manifesto (and about as credible). The stand-out claim is, "you can use Android without Google". This is true. What they don't mention is that it's an all-or-nothing condition. You're either entirely in the Google camp or entirely out. You can't do both. Members of the "Open Handset Alliance" are contractually prohibited from building non-Google approved devices.
Can you seriously imagine any manufacturer involved in Google market considering abandoning that to go it alone? The reality of the situation – as opposed to the rosy picture Google tries to paint in its response to the EU – is Google has the Android market locked down. Read this Ars article that compares them to the Godfather:
Interesting, the first comment opines that, "Google might want to rethink the path that they are going down. This could obviously lead to that nasty little thing called an anti-trust lawsuit." Indeed.
Notes and Evernote don't exist, I guess? I can use AOSP or a CM ROM with Amazon's store and be completely Google-free if I so chose.
As for the topic at hand, I just wonder about the EU and their kangaroo courts sometimes. I'm guessing they want to show they relevant by some good old fashioned jingoistic xenophobia with the repeated allegations against Google or Microsoft. "Yanks Go Home" is a great way to keep judges in office.
It's not weird in the slightest, as this isn't about selling phones, but abusing market position. Why are you so desperate to defend Google? It can't just be ignorance...
Well, yes: Google provides web-based services, and then provides some apps to speed up access to those services from phones. You know, like the Amazon shopping app is depending on Amazon's "services" etc.
100% of web sites could be defined as "malware" by that criterion, because they all depend on sending your data to a remote server.
No more "difficult" than using an iPhone without an Apple account or a Windows machine or Windows phone without a Microsoft account: you need an account for the app store. If that bothers you, there are plenty of phones without app stores; they are called "feature phones".
"Without Google", i.e., without the app store, you can still side-load apps on Android. Any developer can offer that. If Qando doesn't, complain to them and see what they have to say. It's their choice whether to offer a side-loaded app or not.,
You seem to want the anonymity of side-loading with the convenience of the Google-based services, and that is logically impossible.
Its going to be funny when we look back at Google as just another AOL, a tech fad in this burgeoning internet age. "you mean you let that company have all of your social, telemtric, AND financial data, yeesh!"
Google's additions are no more or less restrictive than their counterparts.
They are SIGNIFICANTLY less restrictive than their counterparts. I just got a corporate issued iDevice, and coming from android it is infuriating just how much Apple forces you to play with their ecosystem. You can install google maps, but it wont give you lock screen integration, and it cant be made the default for instructions, and it cant prevent screen lock. You can install SwiftKey, but you cant disable the Apple keyboard, nor prevent its mandatory use for password fields. You can install chrome, but cannot force links to open in it.
It is quite obnoxious to see people holding Google up as the bad guy here. Can you imagine if Apple was dominant? Oh wait, they were for a while and it WAS obnoxious, because it WAS horrendously locked down. Google offers an alternative that people have hacked to pieces and done wonderful things with (like Samsung, XIaoMi, OnePlus, Oppo, etc's take on AOSP) and the EU feels the need to crap on them because they hate google for some reason.
Google isnt perfect but theyre the best internet company we've had in a LONG time. Everyone else is worse in just about every category.
That's not a generic widget. As an app developer, you have to specifically support that widget, in addition to Google's widget. And it's only an - incomplete - replacement for Google's MapView widget v1. The alternative is for a firmware provider to include something like that in the firmware, masquerading it as the Google MapView widget, but then the firmware can't include any of the other apps and services provided by the Google app package, most importantly the Google Play Store. And even if you put yourself in that unfavorable position, you still only get an outdated API which doesn't satisfy the requirements of modern apps. Maybe you need to do more than a couple of minutes searching. You may be sure that there are lots of other ones out there, but I'm sure that you don't know what you're talking about and only looked long enough to have a link for your smartass comment, because Google good, EU bad.
[Microsoft | Apple] are not licensing their OS to other manufacturers, and then forcing those other manufacturers to use other [Microsoft | Apple] services in order to use the [Microsoft | Apple] monopoly app store.
You are not allowed to use one monopoly to leverage other business into another. It's the same concept that so many around here agreed with in DoJ vs. Microsoft - you can't use the Windows monopoly to increase IE market share artificially. Now change out "Windows" with "Google Play" and "IE" with "other Google Services" and you've arrived at the point that the EU antitrust watchdogs are at.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
If you educated yourself on this issue you'd find that many EU companies have been punished severely under antitrust laws. Americans tend to assume that only US firms are ever punished because that's what's reported on US-centric websites (like /.). It's just not true.
How many times did Nokia try to lever one monopoly into existence based on another? None? That's weird.
You Google Fandroids can't even see that this is Windows / IE and DoJ v. Microsoft all over again, because you actually like the company being accused this time.
No, that is not the problem. If Google offered the map widget to developers, and that would end up in the app apks and use the Google Maps service, no matter with which Android phone you use the app, then there wouldn't be any complaints. The problem is that the map widget is either distributed with the OS, but only if all the other Google services and apps are included as well and vice versa (seriously, if your "anticompetitive alarm" doesn't ring at this point, have it checked), or it isn't provided by the OS, and apps which use it crash (close, stop, whatever you want to call it) as soon as they try to instantiate it. A phone which has the Play Store has the Maps widget, so apps which are distributed through the Play Store need not worry about the widget: It's there. Any other widget and map provider would have to be specifically supported, as there is no facility in the OS to use a different map provider with the widget that comes with the OS (as part of the Google apps package).
Google is using its monopoly to exclude competitors, not by making it impossible to use them, obviously, but by making it economically infeasible. If I went and implemented an exact replica (same API, same and complete functionality) of the Google MapView widget, but for OpenStreetMap instead of Google Maps, and made it available for free, then still no commercial firmware provider would ever use that, because then they couldn't provide access to the Google Play store. Google forbidded it.
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Really? Google "forces" other manufacturers to use their app store? Did Amazon get that memo because apparently there are a lot of defective Kindle's out there.
On not-Android operating systems, you can choose to deny a particular app access to a particular permission if you don't use features of that app that require access to that particular permission. For example, on iOS, you can deny an app access to your contacts without blocking the rest of the app from installing, and the App Store Review Guidelines state that the rest of an app must continue working without the permission. Android permissions commonly cited as useful to some but overly intrusive to others include "access network state" (be notified when Internet access comes back so that the app can sync data for offline use), "start after boot" (be notified when the device has been turned back on so that the app can sync data for offline use), and contacts (spell-check your friends' names). One could in theory ship a bare-bones app without these features and make separate helper service apps that just grant each of these permissions to the main app, but I'm told that would create a poor user experience.
The problem, though, is that anyone has a monopoly when you get specific enough. The airlines have a "monopoly" on the food they serve while you are on their flight. What if I want Au Bon Pain? I can't get it (and ABP can't sell it there, even if they want to), because a set of specific circumstances limit me while I am on the flight. I have to buy the airline's "gourmet sandwich," if that's what I want. It isn't a real monopoly, though, because those circumstances are not universal and I could easily either work around them (bring my own food) or choose a different airline.
If they want to claim that Google is monopolizing "computing devices that are mobile phones (specific 1), running Android (specific 2), that have access to the Play Store (specific 3)," then we are talking about a pretty specific set of circumstances, any of which could easily be varied using existing viable alternatives for each specific circumstance. If you go to eat at a microbrewery, you don't get to complain when they promote their own beer.
Almost all of those apps don't depend on any Google service.
Almost all apps depend on a least the store. Very few offer sideload download links that do not requite google creds.
Someone had to do it.
So, if I want to make a call using Verizon (lowest chance of dropped calls), but don't mind using Sprint for my data (its OK if that goes in and out for me, not as critical), but then use AT&T for my texts (for some reason they seem to go through faster since most of my friends are AT&T users), I can do that on the same phone, simultaneously, as long as the radios support all those networks, right? I'm not like restricted to some kind of bundle, am I?
They also, for youtubers with advertising, want to change the contract so they can refuse to let you have adverts for any other company unless they get a cut of that revenue.
This is on top of the cut they get already.
Google ARE fucking people over, just not in web searching, where the claims of Google being free of monopoly power is correct.
They do a shitload more than that, though.
Please show me a phone that has Google Play, but doesn't have other Google services forced onto it.
Thank you for finally seeing the point.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You didn't have to use it...
Googleplus is a good example of how Google will fuck people over (just like Microsoft did with the Start Menu recently), and get away with it because some people didn't see a monopoly abuse.
Disagree all you like, but the courts will apply the law and you don't get to say whether they're allowed or not.
Mobile phones that run Android make up the majority of new mobile phones sold. Mobile phones that run Android and don't have the Play Store installed are such a tiny fraction that they're effectively a rounding error. If your microbrewery provides beer for 70% of all restaurants and enforces a contract that, if you want to stock their beer, you can't sell any other beer and must also sell their line of soft drinks then (first, it's not really very micro, and second) I'd expect it to come under antitrust scrutiny.
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Google made their mapping Apis and libraries available for download. I, for one, used those to make google earth or esri mapping a one click choice for my mapping apps. So can you. It requires some coding though..
Show me a phone that has Samsung App store on it, but doesn't have other Samsung apps forced onto it.
Show me an Android phone you can't install competing app stores on.
Thank you for admitting you're wrong.
Amazon App store. Most everything that is not a Google app is available on the Amazon App store. Now, whether you trust Amazon over Google is another issue.
Google brings a lot to the table by tying all your data together.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
I have a bunch of Motorola MC40 handheld devices on my desk RIGHT NOW that have no ties whatsoever to Google services. It doesn't even have the Play store in the OS image. They work great and do exactly what I need them to do. Android OS allows me to configure and manage them through MDM. I still can get access to apk's of many popular apps that are served in the Play storeas well as the built in applications supplied by the hardware manufacturer. And this is not the only device in the market capable of doing this.
If HTC, Samsung, or any other manufacturer wants to make a phone without the app store, they can--Some do already.
First, it's not my point - it's the EU's.
Second, Samsung isn't under investigation; Google is.
But go ahead and keep deflecting, the good news is that the people directly involved are far more knowledgeable about the circumstances than you are.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Im failing to see how one could argue that Google forces vendors to do anything when there are a large number of premiun handset makers in China making AOSP-based handsets with no linkage to google (which would be impossible, since Google is blocked in China).
Reading the complaint and then reading the Google response will make your head spin. Congratulations Google on a successful redirection of the issue, Android maintains a large percentage of the market share and oh by the way, we'll just slip in our services with it that pays us instead of the phone manufacturer. "But you get it all for 'free'", the cost of your free product is your privacy, your security, and your freedoms. They enter into agreements with manufacturers in order to install the OS which is "free" and then force a certain percentage of Google Applications in order to meet criteria to not meet a mass-distribution payment schedule. Then we're going to layer services within services, so you don't even see us selling to you. Congrats though, you got caught. Time to pay the piper.
Yes, that's called a triple-SIM phone. What's your point?
Really? Tiny? You mean, like the 1B-people-in-China tiny? I guess the Chinese population is nothing more than a rounding error. That and you can't get XiaoMi here without preloaded Google apps, right?
MS isn't licensing their OS? Then how did it get on Nokia (before they were acquired) and Asus phones? Were these manufacturers contracted, yet they retained their names on the devices?
How many of those are sold in the EU? Hint: markets outside the EU are of no concern to the EU regulator.
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Yes, the Chinese population is a rounding error when talking about the EU market, which is the only thing over which the EU regulator has jurisdiction. How many devices that are only sold in China are sold in the EU?
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Are you stating as fact that Google is preventing your bank from publishing their app to the Amazon store (or any other android app stores)? Isn't it more likely the case that your Bank chose to only publish to the Play store?
Are you stating as fact that Microsoft is preventing your OEM from selling a computer with Linux (or any other non-Microsoft operating systems)? Isn't it more likely the case that your OEM chose to only sell and support computers running Microsoft operating systems?
Show me a phone that has Samsung App store on it, but doesn't have other Samsung apps forced onto it.
Show me an Android phone you can't install competing app stores on.
Thank you for admitting you're wrong.
Show me a Windows OS that has IE or WMP on it and doesn't let you install competing browsers or media players.
It's almost as if you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
100% of web sites could be defined as "malware" by that criterion, because they all depend on sending your data to a remote server.
Horse shit.
By definition, data you explicitly send via a GET request (what little there is) is not "data that the user wants to keep private" as it is the user who deliberately and explicitly sent it.
Further, responding to a GET request does not in any way require spreading that data.
Google's blog is spot on even if it won't mean anything in a court room. That blog is one of the best damage control via marketing I've seen.
I barely use Google products since I mostly live in MS world but I applaud their response to the EU.
Perhaps. But what can they do to be more open than they already are. You can sideload apps. You can install another app store. Can you do this on iOS or WinPhone? I suppose they could allow OEMs to install the Play store without any Google apps - or at least without all of them. But a lot of stuff migrated to the app store because the OEM's weren't providing OS upgrades and Google wanted a way to keep phones more or less up to date without relying on OS upgrades. And developers that target those services expect them to be there. Maybe they could develop a dependency system that automatically installs services you need along with any app that needs them. But that's getting pretty deep into design details, no? Moving services out of the OS made sense. In any case, Android provides more opportunity for competition than just about any other platform. How else was Blackberry able to support Android apps - as Microsoft is also rumored to be planning. If Android represents unfair monopolization, it's hard to know what that means.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
100% of web sites could be defined as "malware" by that criterion, because they all depend on sending your data to a remote server.
Horse shit.
By definition, data you explicitly send via a GET request (what little there is) is not "data that the user wants to keep private" as it is the user who deliberately and explicitly sent it.
Further, responding to a GET request does not in any way require spreading that data.
Then why are there so many people using tor or other anonymizing software? How many people would like to keep their IP address private, but don't know how? There is a lot of tracking that can be done via an IP address alone...
Prosecutors take advantage of this in anti-trust trials. When they went after ALCOA just before World War 2, the market was considered virgin aluminum and excluded recycled aluminum and other metals like steel. They simultaneously argued that ALCOA had gained market share at the expense of any competitors by excessively expanding production and lowering price while simultaneously arguing that ALCOA needed to be constrained to prevent shortages of aluminum during the war.
No but as a Xaomi user, I know for sure that they have a one click app in the appstore to install Google services...
a lot of apps (e.g. almost all mobile banking apps) are only available via Google Play
Which major bank's app isn't on Amazon?
I don't know if it's still in force, but there was a time when a single manufacturer wasn't allowed to ship both AOSP devices and Google Play devices.
You need to have a sufficiently large market share that your actions distort the market to be considered a problem.
I was under the impression that in the market for 4 to 5 inch tablets, the iPod touch had "a sufficiently large market share". Can you name any serious competitors in that size range that aren't either A. iOS based or B. intended for use with a cellular network?
And if you really don't want to be linked to Google yet do want online services, buy an iPhone or a Windows phone.
So what if I want to use services that aren't Google's, but I also want to be able to write my own programs for the device without having to pay the $99/year certificate tax to the publisher of the device's operating system?
They are licensing it, but they are NOT requiring other Microsoft services to be used in order to get access to the Microsoft Store. Also, Windows Phone is nowhere near a monopoly status.
How is this hard to understand?
I agree. I've got a rooted phone and I'm using XPrivacy to revoke permissions. I took away a bunch of permissions for the Google Play app that have nothing to do with installing applications. I immediately began getting "Google Play has shut down" when loading other apps... and it's still happening without otherwise affecting said apps or Play itself.
Now why should google play be loading up so often. Checking for an upgrade? It's got access to all it needs to do that... what else could it be doing?
A lot of these apps get around permission restrictions by asking other apps to do their dirty work. Google's attitude to users has become quite obnoxious lately. I hope the EU slams them for any and all data leaks.. if they are collecting your information and making themselves a target for theives and spies then they damned well better be held responsible for what happens.
But what can they do to be more open than they already are
They can allow OEMs to install Google Play without requiring that they install the entire suite of Google apps and without preventing them from installing competing apps.
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Samsung Android phones come with Google Play with maps, keep and youtube - all replaced with "competing apps".
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
You need to learn a lot from another AC post about economically infeasible
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Keep was a FREE app written by Google. What do you expect? The shit is free
IE was a FREE app written my Microsoft. What do you expect? The shit is free
The point is that Google's rules are the same in both markets, and the Asian market has demonstrated how unrestrictive Google is through their extensive use of AOSP to create non-google ecosystems.
It sounds like the argument is "its impossible to use Android without buying into the Google sphere", all the while ignoring the examples to the contrary. How is it Google's fault that no one in the EU has tried to be as innovative as Oppo or Xiaomi?
So because Apple charges you $99/year, Google is a monopoly that needs to be punished by the EU?
Google, the company that actually makes its OS available open source and that you can install as Cyanogen? Google, the company that actually lets you install your apps on your device for free? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense!
And, by definition, if you buy an Android phone and sign in with a Google account, you want your data synced with Google servers.
How does Google "spread" your data?
Google, the company that actually makes its OS available open source and that you can install as Cyanogen?
I agree. The proper target of bitching is not Google as much as hardware makers who intentionally make it hard to switch to CyanogenMod.
The markets are different. Google Play doesn't have the same stranglehold on app distribution in China as it does in the EU, so it's far easier to launch a successful phone in China without the Play store than in the EU.
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Several mobile banking apps have a feature to let an account holder deposit a cheque by photographing the front and back sides. As far as I can tell, cheque deposit is the only major feature of a mobile banking app that can't be done just as easily on the bank's website. So if you don't need this feature, you can just bank in Firefox.
Hmm, this sounds like a US bank thing (cheques are pretty much gone this side of the pond). The main feature of the app is that it can be the second factor in two-factor authentication for the web-based banking, so you don't have to carry around the chip reader device. It's also a bit more convenient for quickly paying someone that you've paid before or checking your balance on the go.
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The main feature of the app is that it can be the second factor in two-factor authentication for the web-based banking, so you don't have to carry around the chip reader device.
Web banking uses a cookie in your browser as the second factor, and this factor is planted through an incoming voice or SMS message to a number that you control.
It's also a bit more convenient for quickly paying someone that you've paid before or checking your balance on the go.
I routinely use web banking for both of these use cases.
Are you stating as fact that Google is preventing your bank from publishing their app to the Amazon store (or any other android app stores)? Isn't it more likely the case that your Bank chose to only publish to the Play store?
Are you stating as fact that Microsoft is preventing your OEM from selling a computer with Linux (or any other non-Microsoft operating systems)? Isn't it more likely the case that your OEM chose to only sell and support computers running Microsoft operating systems?
Are you stating as fact that Microsoft/Apple is preventing companies from writing software for Linux (or any other non-Microsoft/Apple operating system)? Isn't it more likely the case that those companies chose to only write software for Windows/OSX? ..your point is?
My point is you clearly haven't been paying attention for the last few decades.
Or maybe his bank doesn't want the headache of having to publish its banking app to multiple app stores or guaranteeing the authenticity of it's application on all those stores...I'm sure they have their reasons (valid or not). A lot of other banks don't seem to mind though and they have published on multiple stores (The Amazon App store is a good example) But if you want to believe that Google is blocking them from using other apps stores, then by all means, go ahead...
You should've taken a left turn at Albuquerque because you've missed the point by half a fucking continent. Google's practices are akin to the practices MS got busted for (and continues to get busted for).
In essence the original poster stated that Google forced his bank to only release on the play store. I disagreed with him and said that it was his bank's own decision. In stead of engaging me on that specific statement, you have rather opted to act like a troll.