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."

Comments

Re:Android without Google

[oobayly]

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.

Technically right

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Technically right

[wierd_w]

That's probably because somewhere in the google complex, there are some crusty old bureaucrats that just cant let go of the notion that "Proprietary == Profit!", and that "Control" takes many forms other than just "Stop all competition at all costs!"

Things like, "Look, we design and maintain the freaking OS. Here's how the location service API works, and how to make calls. Our location service package in Google Apps is purpose tailored for the Android platform, and we provide support for it-- however, if you want to have your device provide location services using a different library, it needs to conform to this API, and you are on your own if it breaks. We wish you luck, but if it breaks, dont come crying to us over it. Likewise, if you are linking against our location service software in your app using some method OTHER than the published API (Such as hooking some of our secret sauce inside that isn't normally exposed, hijacking some unanticipated feature of our location service daemon, or using some magic ID string for some other purpose that will then break if some 3rd party location service daemon is installed-) you are not developing for the android platform correctly, and if we catch you doing it, we will boot you from the playstore for not following best practices."

You still have market dominance. You still have control over the playstore. You still have control over quality of software on offically supported devices (so you dont look bad) ,AND you get to have a powerful shield against regulatory oppression.

BUT-- Somewhere in corporate la-la land, there is that cadre of old fucks who see an open platform and shit themselves because they dont have a strangle-hold death-grip on every little thing involved.

Re:Technically right

[IamTheRealMike]

We wish you luck, but if it breaks, dont come crying to us over it.

The history of mobile operating systems shows that your preferred strategy is a losing strategy. Users DO come crying over it, and developers cry twice as much. J2ME was basically Android 0.1 and took this approach - it was just a bunch of API specs and then phone vendors could license different implementations, write their own, etc.

J2ME sucked. I know this because I tried to write apps for it. Literally every freaking phone had its own unique combination of stupid, obvious bugs that rendered key APIs unusable without enormous piles of hacks. J2ME developers theoretically wrote Java, but often used a C style macro preprocessor because so many hacks required different source code to handle.

Android learned from J2ME and took a different approach - one single reference implementation that everyone builds off and is not pluggable except in very small, tightly controlled ways. You can modify the reference implementation to your hearts content unless you want access to the Play Store, in which case you have to pass the "Compatibility Test Suite" for core OS functionality, and for some other kinds of things that are impossible to unit test (e.g. Maps quality), agree to ship the Google implementation. This saves developers from J2ME hell making users and developers happy, and still lets manufacturers tweak things that aren't covered by the CTS, like reskinning things.

I see no evidence the EU has any understanding of the delicate balancing act Android represents, or the history of mobile phone operating systems. I fear this will be yet another bull-in-china-shop scenario. On the other hand, if Google are doing things like what Microsoft used to do by saying "if you sell any Google-services phone you cannot sell any non-Google-services phone" then that'd be a problem that is correctable without hurting developers.

Re:Android without Google

[linearZ]

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.

Missing tag for this story: CYANOGEN

[storkus]

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...

Re:Missing tag for this story: CYANOGEN

[AmiMoJo]

Cyanogen isn't a fork of Android. They don't develop their own code for the core Android OS, they just build custom versions of it with the odd patch to enable development features that Google doesn't (such as AppOps). They package and release it with their own apps and installer, in the same way that Linux distros do. So Cyanogen is no more a fork of Android than Ubuntu and Debian are forks of Linux.

Besides which, surely iOS and Windows Phone would be their defence, if they needed one. The EU doesn't actually care that Android is the dominant mobile/tablet OS, in the same way that they didn't care that Windows was the dominant PC OS. What they care about is bundling other services, and trying to force manufacturers to stick to certain defaults. When Microsoft tried it the solution was to release a version of Windows without Media Player bundled, and to display a browser choice screen to all EU users. It is likely that the same solution will be proposed for Android, so when you first turn the device on it asks what search engine you want to use and offers you a selection of browsers.

Open Source implementation of Play Services

[aikawa]

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...

Re:Nokia

[TheRaven64]

You seem to fundamentally misunderstand how antitrust regulations work. You need to have a sufficiently large market share that your actions distort the market to be considered a problem. I could release a smartphone tomorrow that had a single app store and was completely obnoxious in every single way that people have complained about Microsoft, Apple, and Google, but I would be exempt from any antitrust exemptions because no one would buy my CrapPhone and it would have no impact on the market.

Re:This will be interesting,

[silentcoder]

Companies have no rights at all. Only human beings have rights. Companies have such privileges as society deems fit to grant them for the benefit of society. Benefit to the companies is purely coincidental and only needed when that benefit happens to benefit society as well.
Those who feel otherwise (and think what they are saying is free-market thinking) REALLY need to go brush up on their Benjamin Franklin and Adam Smith.

Now, having said that, over-regulation is NOT to the benefit of society (but neither is under-regulation) the trick is to find the right balance, regulate against harmful behavior, regulate against the guy who would rather lock the fire escape than hire a security guard and ends up killing 103 people who otherwise almost certainly would have all survived the accidental fire (real case example).
In the case of anti-trust, take your cue from the greatest trust-buster of them all - President Rooseveldt, look at what the guy with the monpoly is actually DOING with that monopoly. Is he harming consumers ? Is he harming workers ? Is he jacking up prices ? Then destroy his monopoly with extreme prejudice. But if he isn't abusing that position, not actively trying to prevent competition from arising, not jacking prices up (but indeed his market shows a continous price-per-value drop over time), not harming consumers in a significant manner, treating workers well and fairly ? Then leave him alone in time the market will bring competitors - and we can AFFORD to wait when he isn't doing bad things.

I am always amazed when people call Obama a liberal president - his policies are center-right at best, Teddy Rooseveldt - now THAT was a Liberal. Probably the most liberal president America ever had. Conservationist, union-defender, workers-rights defender, opposed inequality and lack of social mobility (as he correctly realized: sufficient inequality can and always WILL lead to violent revolution, an outcome he believed ought ot be avoided by preventing that level of inequality from arising in the first place), the man behind some of the strictest anti-trust laws the US ever had - and willing to go to bat personally to get them enforced (as in - he personally had meetings with the CEO's of the companies he targetted - and when push came to shove showed up at the supreme court and took the stand himself).

So on balance ? There are areas where Google is due for some scrutiny, data protection and privacy laws are near the top of the list. They may have a monopoly in advertising and it may indeed be harmful (I'm not convinced but I recognize this as possible) - but android ? Nah, Android is an area where Google has been very well behaved, I don't care if their market share is monopoly level or not because even if they HAVE A monopoly what they've been DOING with it is not significantly harmful in any way.

Re:Android without Google

[LordLimecat]

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?

Re:Nokia

[TheRaven64]

Simple example: I want to sell an Android phone. Not a problem, I can download AOSP and run it. Except that a lot of apps (e.g. almost all mobile banking apps) are only available via Google Play. Okay, so I'll license Google Play for my device. Here's where the problems start: I can only license Google Play if I also preinstall a load of other Google apps (and don't install any competing apps in a few categories and in a way that allows the user to hide them from the UI, but not actually remove them and reclaim the space).

Google is using the fact that they effectively have a monopoly on application distribution (yes, I know about F-Droid and the Amazon store. Most apps I want come from F-Droid, but I'm hardly a typical user and the rest come from Play because they're not in the Amazon store) to gain market share in other areas.

Re:Android without Google

[LordLimecat]

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.

Re:Nokia

[MachineShedFred]

Fanboyism trumps market economics every time. I personally want a healthy Android, and a healthy iOS - both systems push each other to be better, and we all win. Hell, a healthy Windows Phone in the mix wouldn't hurt either. A nice 3-way competition for my money.

Why people figure for one company to win, they have to completely crush the competition is beyond me - it only leads to irrational fanaticism that the company itself doesn't feel, and legal problems just like Google is now facing in the EU.

Apple doesn't give a shit if Android wants to take the bottom 60% of the market - they're perfectly happy owning the top 25%.
Google doesn't give a shit if Apple holds 25% of the market - they're happy with the 70% of the eyeballs looking at their ads, and inputting data into their indexing engines.
Microsoft probably gives a shit, because they've always been ruthless assholes. But, they're under 5% of the mobile market so nobody cares.
Blackberry hardly exists anymore, just like Symbian and the other also-rans.

Re:Android without Google

[Daemonik]

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.