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Europe Is Going After Google For Anti-Competitive Behavior With Android
Google now faces more competition charges in the European Union. The EU has accused Google of skewing the market against competitors with its Android mobile operating system. The 28-member state bloc's antitrust commissioner concluded in a preliminary decision that the search giant has abused its dominant position in the market by imposing restrictions on Android device makers. "What we found is that Google pursues an overall strategy on mobile devices to protect and expand its dominant position in internet search," said Margrethe Vestager, the EU competition chief. "The commission is concerned that Google's behaviour has harmed consumers by restricting competition and innovation," she added. "Rival search engines and mobile operating systems have not been able to compete on their merits. This is not good." Google has three months to respond to the aforementioned charges. The New York Times reports: Europe's antitrust charges might not necessarily lead to financial or other penalties against Google. If it is found to have broken the region's rules, though, the company may face fines of up to 10 percent of its global revenue, or roughly $7 billion, the maximum allowable amount. Google denies that it has broken European competition rules, saying that its dealings with cellphone manufacturers like Samsung and HTC, among others, are voluntary, and that rival mobile services are readily available on its Android software.According to EU, Google has breached antitrust rules by:1. requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google's Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to license certain Google proprietary apps; 2. preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code; 3. giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices."The joke in Google's cafeteria today will be "let them use bing," said Andrew Parker, VC. "So disappointing that browser dominance on Android is the only thing that the EU can get worked up about," Blaine Cook, co-founder of Poetica noted. "The European Commission's statement of objections against Android lends further credibility to Oracle's $9B copyright claim," Florian Mueller, the founder of FOSS Patents blog wrote.
Given that Android is the only mobile OS that actually allows phone manufacturers/carriers to change the default search engine or browser.
You know if the brits leave the EU, that's a good thing. They were the major stopgap hindering to get real work done against the banks in the late 00's banking crisis.
Google has a browser? That can't possibly be true, because Microsoft's market dominance in the 90s ensured that their default Internet Explorer browser did not face any competition and is now the only browser that exists (at least according to the logic of EU regulators).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
How on Earth does "The European Commission's statement of objections against Android lends further credibility to Oracle's $9B copyright claim,"?
This is a total non-sequitur.
Google's lock in system bases not on the google-owned apps (they are just a few, and yes they are very much used by users, but I guess people can come up with an alternative). The main reason to be locked in to Google is their proprietary APIs they offer to app developers. You can't simply take an apk and publish it on an alternative market, if there are no gapps installed on the device, most of the apps won't work.
So even if a competitor managed to replace all the gapps that are exposed to the user (maps, search, etc), they still would have a very hard time at building a competing app store. Most of the app developers don't want to port the app if the user count is low and nobody would install it if they couldn't install all the apps.
Its the same issue linux is facing. People don't care about operating systems. They want to install an application, and if it doesn't work, its not the fault of the application developers, its the fault of the operating system (at least for them).
From the first link:
...However, if a manufacturer wishes to pre-install Google proprietary apps, including Google Play Store and Google Search, on any of its devices, Google requires it to enter into an "Anti-Fragmentation Agreement" that commits it not to sell devices running on Android forks.
Which makes sooooo much sense from a software shop perspective as well as a historical one as well. You want there to be as singular as an install base as possible. Same goes for the Linux kernel. Is the commission going to go after that next?
A second section:
As a result, rival search engines are not able to become the default search service on the significant majority of devices sold in the EEA.
Defaults can be pretty powerful, just go ask Microsoft and IE. But that doesn't stop people from installing something that works better for them. See Chrome and Firefox, both of which were able to overcome IE's default market position by offering a product that people liked better. The same can and should happen here.
I think there should be a space between the search results and the advertisement side of Alphabet. However, that's an entirely separate issue from Android. The same goes for privacy. Both are important enough to break out on their own, so this? This is nuts.
In all honesty I've tried to use other search engines but none of them come close to Google results, especially when searching on development terms, error messages and the like. Don't even get me started on Bing, it clearly steers the results towards something it can sell you. There seems to be a funny philosophy that Bing was made with.. it seems to be orientated to people, places, and things rather than point me to the actual answer to a development question that is buried in an internet comment somewhere.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If you have any respect at all for your own credibility, do not quote Florian Mueller. I'd say he's an ass, but that would be disrespectful to the Donkey.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Don't kid yourself: tools like Margrethe Vestager exist for two simple reasons. First, wounded European pride, namely the fact that Europe is far behind the US in innovation and high tech. Second, uncompetitive European corporations are trying to win through political machinations when they can't win in the market.
There's also the thing that web apps suck. The web is a hypertext platform, not an app platform.
Can't we make a deal? We push over the UK to the US and we get Canada in return. We are used to multi-lingual countries.
That way everybody will be happy.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Ok, based off what I read, 1 & 3 are true but they are common business practices used in multiple areas. 2 is completely false but market forces make it look true.
A good example of 1 & 3 is Coke. If you decide to have Coke in your business, Coke will give you things as promotional considerations. Signs with you name on it plus the Coke logo, etc. But to get those you have to not carry Pepsi. That's the crux of 1 & 3. If you want to carry both, then you don't get the goodies that go along with them. You can preload Play with something else, but not Maps, Gmail and the other unless you agree to exclusivity for the preinstalled items. (The Play concession was made a while back to satisfy some anti-trust worries). More manufactures don't do that though because of the incentives plus market forces. People want Google's stuff there and ready. Google isn't holding a gun to people's head saying "Use Gmail or else". There are plenty of option and I use one myself in the form of AquaMail to my non-Gmail e-mail.
As for #2, hello, phones being sold running Cyanogen and others based on AOSP derivatives, but they don't have a big market share yet, or maybe ever. Market forces (people) aren't creating a demand for them. Thus the big guys don't make Cyanogen phones because people won't buy them en mass. And it's not for a lack of trying. Look at Samsung and all the times they've tried to do Tizen as an Android alternative. They never got anywhere. The mass market is happy with what they have. Phone OSs are a two horse race (Android and iOS). You're not going to force the market to accept more if they don't want it, but that's seems to be what the EU is angling for with #2.
This is just how I see it. I'm sure someone is going to come along with some conspiracy and collusion theory as to why I'm wrong, but this is a situation where the simple answer is the answer.
Thing is all the pro-leave people seem bloody nuts and completely ignorant of the facts.
particular, the rest of the EU will have to learn to be more responsible, rather than relying on the UK to bail them out.
TIL UK == Germany.
You mean the banking crisis that was mostly created by government-run banks making loans based on political pressure?
What government run banks? They only became government run after going bust and getting bailed out.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
claiming that low prices were predatory
Low predatory pricing is *the* tool against destroying competition that's smaller than you. You are the big one, you have the capital to keep the price low (even if it's not profitable for you!), for as long as you want. You just wait until your small competition either gets no customers because their prices aren't competing with your's or they go bankrupt because they used up their much smaller capital much faster than you.
Then, after all small competition is ruled out, you can rise prices again and make much more money than you spent on the aggressive predatory pricing.
How did the UK ever bail out the rest of the EU? You seem to be confusing the UK and Germany.
"Rival search engines and mobile operating systems have not been able to compete on their merits. This is not good." I don't even know what to say about this! If you can't compete on your own merits then where is the problem? Give me something better and maybe I'll try it. WebOS was pretty good, but it couldn't compete on it's merits either. We all see where it is. Make a better product. Google and Apple did and they are winning. On their own merits.
You know if the brits leave the EU, that's a good thing. They were the major stopgap hindering to get real work done against the banks in the late 00's banking crisis.
Sadly, this may well be the case. To all those in UK who are for brexit because 'EU limits the sovereign power of Parliament': is that really such a bad thing, when you think about it? Would it really be sensible to put more power into the hands of the likes of Osbourne, Cameron, ...? And they are actually at the more decent end of the spectrum, as Tories go. EU has brought a lot of benefits to UK, quite apart from the economic gains.
Don't get me wrong - I am very much a Eurosceptic, as most sensible people would be, but I think even in its current configuration, it is still the right thing to stay in EU and work to change it from within. I don't buy into the 'passionate' arguments for or against, I have much more respect for level-headed reasoning and balanced views. So far in the debate, the leave side sound far more emotional in their arguments than the remain side - and especially Jeremy Corbin's pragmatic views ring true, exactly because he so clearly doesn't like EU much, but on balance has to concede that it is in fact better to stay in. That's how I feel, and I think a lot of people agree.
Yes, your internet and TV services are some of the cheapest in the world. Oh, wait... Healthcare? Insurance? As they said, Breaking Bad would have been a very short series in the rest of the developed world...
If we leave it will be an economic disaster for us, and in the long run give Europe a boost as e.g. Frankfurt takes over as the biggest European financial services hub.
On the other hand, we will lose control of our borders and immigration will become easier. Cameron's deal tries to tighten the rules on freedom of movement with spouses. If the UK leaves the EU will most likely ditch those changes, and of course the UK will be forced to accept freedom of movement as that's a non-negotiable part of the EU free trade system. The UK won't be able to make the rules stricter, and won't be able to veto countries like Turkey entering the EU, so EU immigration will increase.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
One of the nice things about an Android phone is you can stay completely divorced from Google if you choose. You can install the Amazon App Store instead and never, ever, log onto Google, and still have a rich selection of Apps to install.
Of course, then you're hooking your wagon to Amazon instead, which isn't really a lot different.
I don't know about anyone else, but I always have to go back to Google to find info on Microsoft.com (especially technical articles or programming specs), updates for Microsoft or Logitech stuff, items on Best Buy, because all their searches are old-school pure text shit.
No, Microsoft. If I push F1 in Excel on a Visual Basic keyword in Excel, I am not looking for something in a Java or Microsoft Access language.
This is why you fail.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I'm not justifying the action in any way, but be aware that regulators tend to look at market power when determining whether a business's marketing violates competition regulations. Coke and Pepsi are more or less equals, so Coke discriminating against a store that sells Pepsi isn't something that necessarily violates monopoly laws.
I suspect the logic here is that Android with Google's services is installed on virtually everything that isn't Apple. Moreover, Google's middleware with Android is the only real choice for mobile phone manufacturers as iOS isn't available to them, and nothing else is taken seriously by the market. Therefore, an argument can be made that Google has market power, and has to tread more carefully than other businesses when determining when its products can be used.
I suspect some of these are the EU overreaching whereas others Google could comply with relatively easily. Google can drop the search page and bundled software requirement, allowing manufacturers to license just Play Services and the Play Store, which would be enough as far as most end users are concerned.
The question is whether Google wants to fight what, to many of us, is a pointless war by both sides with some negative consequences when it comes to motivating private, profit seeking, businesses to contribute to free software.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I remember this scare story from when we didn't join the Euro. Wrong then, wrong now.
Wrong, the EU has a free trade deal with Turkey without free movement. You are confusing the "single market" with free trade.
But outside the EU we won't have free movement with the EU so we can set the level and type of immigration as we see fit. Cyprus will veto Turkish membership of the EU anyway.
This must be Apple's hypocritical doing. How come Apple hasn't been sued for monopolistic practices? When you buy apps or movies on iTunes (legally) you are have to spend money to repurchase them if you want to switch to Android. Also there is no way to re-sell apps that you bought once you are done with it.
Wow, so the worm has turned.
Remember 10 years ago when the iPhone came out, and all it had was web apps, and everyone bitched and moaned that they hadn't published developer tools and an API to code against?
And this was when there actually was enough innovation in mobile browsers, as Safari Mobile made every other browser on every other phone look like a joke, leading to WebKit (and it's descendants) to rule the browser market today.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The people involved in competition disputes are actually interested in whether there is real competition and if a company is trying to use dominance in one are to gain dominance in another. They are not intereste in theoretically things that could compete but aren't.
Remember the point is not about having a monopoly it's about abusing it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
ah yes, that well known Microsoft/Oracle anti-Google shill...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
As for #2, hello, phones being sold running Cyanogen and others based on AOSP derivatives, but they don't have a big market share yet, or maybe ever.
It's not well explained in the summary, but one of the conditions when licensing the Play Store for inclusion in your Android phones is that you can't release phones with Android forks. I don't know the exact wording but you get the idea. So #2 is actually true, it's just not clearly explained in the summary