Slashdot Mirror
Google May Have To Make Major Changes To Android in Response To a Forthcoming Fine in Europe (washingtonpost.com)
Google could face a new record penalty this month from European regulators for forcing its search and Web-browsing tools on the makers of Android-equipped smartphones and other devices, potentially resulting in major changes to the world's most widely deployed mobile operating system. From a report: The punishment from Margrethe Vestager, the European Union's competition chief, is expected to include a fine raging into the billions of dollars, according to people familiar with her thinking, marking the second time in as many years that the region's antitrust authorities have found that Google threatens corporate rivals and consumers. At the heart of the E.U.'s looming decision are Google's policies that pressure smartphone and tablet manufacturers that use Google's Android operating system to pre-install the tech giant's own apps. In the E.U.'s eyes, device makers such as HTC and Samsung face an anti-competitive choice: Set Google Search as the default search service and offer Google's Chrome browser, or lose access to Android's popular app store. Lacking that portal, owners of Android smartphones or tablets can't easily download games or other apps -- or services from Google's competitors offered by third-party developers.
Nobody wants to be locked into a telecom's app store, thanks.
So let me get this straight. Google provides a free as in beer OS (some of it is OSS but not all) for mobile and strong-arms OEM's to included ALL of Google services or else no app store and THAT is bad because even though there are competing app stores they suck. While Apple doesn't even allow competing app stores, browsers (a wrapper called chrome on Apples engine is not a competing browser), or scripting languages and that is OK? I welcome the scrutiny on Google but lets get real.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
That doesn't make any sense. Android is Google's product and if you're an OEM you are free not to use it and come up with your own mobile OS. If you use Android, Google politely requires you to adhere to their rules because that's the only way to provide a high-quality OS and good experience.
I don't understand this antitrust lawsuit against Google at all. What are Europe authorities advocating for? For breaking Android up into incompatible versions? For breaking up Google's Android department?
Don't use Android then. Also, Google doesn't lock anyone from providing their own software. Google wants their software to be included by default and they have the right to.
That is pretty much like saying "Don't use Windows" in the PC market, which translates to "leave the market".
Really? What about f-droid and more than a dozen of other app stores?
Fuck no.
There's one just one Windows which is developed solely by Microsoft.
Then, there's Android which you can perfectly use without Google services and which is free to download, modify and compile.
Something is really messed up in your head.
The problem is that Android is (as I wrote) now the only realistic alternative for mobile phone manufacturers.
Is it in the interest of consumers that Google gets more power than they already have?
Was it good that Microsoft ruled the PC platform for 20 years?
In practice there's no difference - their stuff is so bloated there's no space left for anything else.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Microsoft still does rule the PC platform. They're also trying to pull an Apple/Google by forcing patches, tying their search bar to cortana instead of being a basic explorer search, trying to push people onto the Windows store, etc.
Due to the network effect that is hardly possible today.
Amazon is big enough to have a limited amount of Android fork for its own devices, that are kind of dedicated to accessing Amazon services. Other manufacturers are not in that position.
Just like it was 100% feasible to create a windows API clone (remember reactos?), it just wasn't practical, and MSFT had (and still has) a damanging monopoly for office software.
Now Google has gained an almost monopoly for the mobile market, which might be even more significant than any monopoly MSFT ever had. It is trying very hard to cement and even expand it.
It is clear that something must be done. People should not be so short sighted and believe that a Google monopoly won't be a problem.
Monopolies always lead to problems, too much concentration of power, and all the other problems that flow from that.
A free market economy can only function with healthy competition. For that reason, authorities in market econoies have always tried to prevent, or otherwise dissolve, monopolies.
If this would not be done, the company will become more powerful than the state, than the democratically chosen government, and corrupt it. It will end in fascism.
Wow!
Are you saying Google will be better off by making Android a closed platform just like Apple does? Craptastic thinking on behalf of European authorities! Maybe Google should listen to them and do just that.
âthey have the right toâ ... citation needeed, because apparently not all authorities tasked with handling monopoly malpractices happen to agree.
The point of antitrust law is that if you have a (near) monopoly in one area, you are not allowed to (ab)use that to also gain a monopoly in another area. Antitrust law always removes freedom of enterprise for the (assumed) benefits of consumers. The justification for this is that free markets work well iff there is healthy competition; and that if left alone companies tend to concentrate by merger or natural growth and then get monopoly pricing power (see e.g. the history of US railways). If there is only two companies left, they have a very strong incentive to merge because as monopolists they can make much more profit than when they are in competition with each other. So, in reaction to the abuses of (especially) 19th century capitalism the government stepped in to break up companies, prevent mergers, and restrict the freedom of (near) monopolists if break up is not sensible or not needed.
Concretely, it is fine if a random linux distro would by default install its own browser. However, if MS by default installs its own browser on its (near) monopoly desktop OS, it is abusing its OS market power to increase its market share in the browser market.
So, yes, if android didn't have a (near) monopoly there would be no problem. However, now that it is a near monopoly they lose the freedom to use their mobile OS market share to effectively push their other services onto users.
This is exactly it. It's not the underlying Android OS, it's the Google Play Services -- the middleware that enables smartphone ecosystem functionality -- that's the key issue. Google's been moving more and more functionality into that, and then locks manufacturers down in the exact same way Microsoft used to do with various hardware manufacturers vis-a-vis Windows licenses.
Frankly, we would be a in a much healthier place if Android OS was strong and it was forced to allow a choice of various middleware systems. Don't like Google Services? Use something else. True freedom even if you're not compiling your own smartphone OS yourself.
To do this will require serious anti-trust work, DOJ oversight, demands that non-Google-Inc functions be placed in the OS layer, and a removal of restrictions on hardware makers by Google.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,