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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.
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?
Now there's a joke if I ever heard one.
How about this one: In Soviet Russia, Antitrust monopolizes you!
But you know what they say: coordinating OSS is like herding cats. Sometimes dominant companies are needed to form and enforce quasi-standards. I believe there's a happy medium somewhere between an MS-style monopoly and 40 or so OS distros that require too much tinkering to work with existing software and tools.
OSS versus "corporate" sometimes reminds me of "capitalism versus socialism". The best systems seem to be a compromise between the two. The extremes of either end are highly unpleasant (for most).
Yes, I am raining on the idealism parade here, and going yin/yang/balance on you.
Table-ized A.I.