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Google May Face Another Record EU Fine, This Time Over Android (itwire.com)
troublemaker_23 shares a report from ITWire: The EU is contemplating another record fine against Google over how it pays and limits mobile phone providers who use the search company's Android mobile operating system and app store. Reuters reported that a decision could be expected by the end of the year if the opinion of a team of experts, set up by the EU to obtain a second opinion, agree with the decisions reached by the team that has worked on the case. The report quoted Richard Windsor, an independent financial analyst, as saying that the Android fine was likely to hurt Google more than the search fine or the verdict in a third EU probe over AdSense. "If Google was forced to unbundle Google Play from its other Digital Life services, handset makers and operators would be free to set whatever they like by default potentially triggering a decline in the usage of Google's services," he said.
In the chargesheet, issued on April 20, 2016, the European Commission said Google had breached EU anti-trust rules by:
-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;
-Preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code;
-Giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
In the chargesheet, issued on April 20, 2016, the European Commission said Google had breached EU anti-trust rules by:
-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;
-Preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code;
-Giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
Probably when Apple has a dominant market position, and uses that dominant market position to get a head start in another sector, but they don't, so... probably not any time soon.
Contract, if you make an Android derived device you have violated the conditions of the contract and you lose access to the Play Store and all of the "with Google" apps and all of the API libraries that use Google resources. Frankly I'm a bit surprised by this ruling, Google makes the base Android OS available to anyone, they only require that you follow certain rules if you wish to have your users use their resources. To me this seems perfectly fine. They even allow the users to set and change the default applications for any action which is exactly the remedy the EU used against MS when they went after them so this is some serious goalpost moving (how exactly are you supposed to avoid these money grabs if you follow the guidance from the last ruling and still get dinged?).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The EU says that companies should not be allowed to create such "tremendous amount of consumer value" at the expense of shitting on their citizens in other ways (privacy, surveillance, bundling, exploiting labor, etc).