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FTC Begins Investigating Google For Antitrust Violations Over "Home Screen Advantage"
The New York Times reports that the regulators of the Federal Trade Commission have a new target at Google: Android. Specifically, according to "two people involved in the [preliminary] inquiry," the FTC is looking askance at how Google treats its other software products and services (like Maps) in relation to the mobile OS. While Android itself can be bundled on phones, tablets, and other devices without charge, Google insists on a trade-off when it comes to its own services, like its app store, Google Play: to include access to those services, without which a typical Android device is far less valuable, hardware manufacturers must also include Google's designated apps (Gmail, Google Maps, and the Google search engine interface).
Says the article:
In recent months, a number of mobile application makers have complained to the Justice Department that this requirement — the “home-screen advantage” — makes it all but impossible for them to compete in a world where people are spending less time on desktop computers and more time on mobile phones. ... Since then, the F.T.C. has worked out an agreement with the Justice Department to investigate the claims, the people involved in the inquiry said.
Apple "gets away with it" because they don't license the OS to anyone else, and therefore obviously they are not forcing a licensee to include their apps.
They're completely removable. Just grab the AOSP release of Android. If you don't want to mess with compiling, the volunteers at CyanogenMod do an excellent job releasing pre-compiled binaries for most devices. Then you can run it sans-Google, or install the Google apps bundle if you wish (a lot of people want Android with the Google apps, but without the crud their carrier force-installs on their phone).
What's that? You don't want to go to all that trouble? Well Google went to all the trouble of making Android and releasing it in both open source and their proprietary versions. They're not charging you any money for their proprietary version - the only price they charge for you being spoon-fed is that the Google apps are bundled with it.
If Android were in fact a monopoly, how exactly would you propose breaking it up? By splitting the OS from the bundled apps. Except Google has already done that by making it open source. I don't know how more anti-monopoly you can get than releasing your entire OS as open source. The only thing stopping anyone from making or releasing their own version of Android without the bundled Google apps is literally their own laziness. What if Microsoft had released the code for Windows as open source? What if Standard Oil had released all the data and plans for finding oil and building your own drilling derrick? What if AT&T had released, free of all copyright and patent encumbrances, all the plans for making phones and switching exchanges which were plug compatible with their network?
The fact that Google releases an open source version of Android in parallel with their own version lets you see what's really going on here. Several companies have tried using AOSP to make their own version of Android - Amazon, Barnes and Noble, many Chinese vendors, and now Blackberry. None have been as successful as Google. That tells you that it isn't Android which is making Google's apps successful. It's Google's apps which are making their version of Android successful. Precisely the opposite of the FTC investigation's premise. Barnes and Noble's customers in particular begged them to add the Google Play store, which they eventually did.
There was a thriving market for web browsers which was developing in the early days of the web. Netscape (founded by the folks who made NCSA Mosaic) originally cost you $40. Then Microsoft pulled the rug out from that market by bundling IE for free - effectively using profit from Windows to subsidize development of their own browser and preventing any other browser maker from being able to financially compete with it. That's why Microsoft got tagged for anti-trust violations.