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Google Loses Anti-Monopoly Appeal In Russia Over Android Bundling (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader shares an update on Google's ongoing battle with Russian regulators: Google suffered a major blow in Russia on Monday, after the Moscow Arbitration court sided with an earlier ruling that Google had violated the country's anti-trust rules by having its apps and services bundled on Android smartphones. Yandex, a Russia-based search engine, last year sued Google over "anti-competitive practices," saying that Google was abusing its dominant position in the market to hurt competition. In response, Google had noted that Android, which roughly owns 80 percent of the market, is a free and open source operating system. At the time, the Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) ruled that Android users must not be catered with Google's homegrown apps and services. The Moscow's Arbitration Court ruling said on Monday that it fully supports the earlier FAS decision. According to an Ars Technica report, "Google will now be required to change its business practices with smartphone makers in Russia, or else face a fine if it fails to adhere to the ruling."
Abusing a monopoly is only not ok when you're Microsoft. Please get your prejudices right, Russia.
Fortunately, Super-Snowden is already in Russia and will save Google from those bad, evil NSA types that run the Russian kleptocracy!
And don't forget Snowden's side-kick: Vladdy-doo, with the famous catch-phrase: PUTIN POWER!
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Agreed... while I think the court is correct (Android is a de facto monopoly in many countries and Google isn't shy about leveraging it to push their other services), this decision falls in the "even a stopped clock" category.
Of course, I'm sure the bribe..err..fine will be low enough that Google won't actually have to change anything.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The crapware installed by AT&T annoys me far more than the crapware from Google. At least some of the Google apps are useful.
What annoys me about Google is that whatever you're using today may be gone tomorrow.
Android Googles YOU!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Now there's a joke if I ever heard one.
How about this one: In Soviet Russia, Antitrust monopolizes you!
Android is only "technically" open source, in reality the platform is tightly controlled by Google and its allies.
I think these quasi-monopolies should all be destroyed and every platform should be forced to be open and always let the user choose 3rd party application repositories out of the box.
and while you are at it stop the fucking carriers and handset makers from changing the damn OS so badly. HTC sense should be an option I have to download, not something shoved down my throat. and the baked in Apps that can not be deleted.... yeah stop that bullshit.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The thing is, in a country like Thailand, Google can just say: "OK, we're complying with your ruling and turning off all services". And in a day or two the ruling will be reversed once people stop being able to look their favorite YouTube videos and read their email.
However, there are homegrown replacements for pretty much all of the Google tools in Russia. Yandex has (quite decent) search, maps (including street view), email, calendaring and so on.
I don't think it even fits into the stopped clock thing to be honest. It's easy to install third party app stores or bypass the Play Store to install apps, it's perfectly legal to fork Android, and Google, as the principle developer of the project, does actually get some rights from having that status.
There's no mandate that forces companies to sign with Google. Amazon would be delighted for mobile phone makers to partner with it. Google is, for better or worse, what people actually want.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
They both annoy me. I don't like the google apps myself and there are just as many of them at the AT&T stuff, just named differently so that they're not all grouped together alphabetically.
Part of the issue, as I understand it, is it's sort of an "all or nothing" arrangement.
If I'm selling Android phones, I can't pre-install Google Maps without also installing Google's Search Bar and various other Google apps. So if I want to install Google Maps and install Yandex's Search Bar, I'm SOL.
What search bar? You mean the one found in Google's stock launcher? Hardly any OEMs actually use that. Google does pay them commissions for searches done in their own launchers (and other apps) though, which is why their launchers might have a search bar, but there isn't a requirement for it to be there. HTC M9 doesn't have one, for example.
As for Google Maps and Play Services, Android would break if they weren't present. For example, I use Endomondo to track my cycling, and Endomondo uses the Google Maps API for all kinds of stuff that it does. If you pulled out Google Maps, you'd invariably break Endomondo as well as a ton of other location aware apps. You'd also break just about every app there is if you removed Play Services.
Who makes smartphones in Russia to be affected?
Android Open Source Project does not bundle anything, particularly not any app store. TFA does not mention this, what is the court decision based on?
As for Google Maps and Play Services, Android would break if they weren't present.
I remember Microsoft saying the same about Internet Explorer.
And Apple saying the same thing about stock apps on the iPhone:
"This is a more complex issue than it first appears. There are some apps that are linked to something else on the iPhone. If they were to be removed they might cause issues elsewhere on the phone"
Android is a de facto monopoly in many countries and Google
How is an open source project a defacto monopoly? By it's nature it has no market power.
Google services are a defacto monopoly. People don't give a shit about Android underneath and the vast majority of handset vendors customise the shit out of it to the point where in some cases it's barely recognisable. Monopoly is attributed to Google Play services and that alone. But that's what people pay for so it makes no sense to unbundle it anymore than the request for Apple to sell a handset without the App Store on it.
So why aren't they going after apple, which is far more closed and restrictive than android? With android you can just get the source and build your own ecosystem on top of it if you want. With iOS, it's their way or the highway. Apple's iphone IS a monopoly, far more than Android ever could be.
For those arguing that Android isn't open, or requires google's strict approval, please explain the hundreds of custom android builds out there - almost none of which sought permission from google.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I don't understand the gripe here... don't most phones come with a bunch of software? And what's stopping users from just picking a different browser from Play? If Yandex is so upset over the unfair competition, why don't they build their own phones and OS?
Agreed... while I think the court is correct (Android is a de facto monopoly in many countries and Google isn't shy about leveraging it to push their other services), this decision falls in the "even a stopped clock" category.
Of course, I'm sure the bribe..err..fine will be low enough that Google won't actually have to change anything.
Depends on who owns the Russian-based search engine that opened the charges against Google in the first place.
If it's a Putin crony, for example, then google might be SOL
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
What annoys me about Google is that whatever you're using today may be gone tomorrow.
I checked Google Answer's and here's the GOOG-411 - you're completely wrong. A friend of mine just Google Wave's me that he was thinking about moving his pictures from Picnik to Picasa, because as he likes both, he heard on Orkut that the former might get Panoramio integration & he likes that better than Picasa Web Albums. Me? Nah, I don't do much with photos myself, I just keep up with Slashdot via Google Reader and sometimes my iGoogle page - the few photos I sort I can use Google Desktop to manage. now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to help someone via Aardvark. I get good money via BebaPay that way.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
There are a bunch of apple apps and services supplied bundled with their phones
SURELY NOT!!!!!
That might be true, I haven't used the stock launcher in a long time. However last time I did, it was present. They didn't have it in the Google Now launcher (if you swiped far left you'd see a search though) which I think may be the default launcher for Nexus devices these days. I'm not sure though because the first thing I do is install Nova launcher and have it pull all of my layout settings from google drive. There isn't a google search bar to be found anywhere on my phone.