Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
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?
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.