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.

Comments

Re:So how much

[FaxeTheCat]

Nothing.

The EU are trying to avoid a Microsoft Windows situation on mobile phones.

With Android being the only realistic OS available outside of Apple, it seems like a smart move to avoid another monopoly.

Wait..What?

[ArhcAngel]

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.

Re:So how much

[mrvan]

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.

Re:So how much

[Etcetera]

Google is attempting to leverage a much-desired feature (i.e., Play store) to insert their other services (e.g., YouTube, GMail, Drive, etc) along side it by forcing manufacturers who want Play Store to make those apps one-tap away at most, punishing OEMs and ODMs who are Play-licensed to not produce any vanilla Android without Play (see Amazon) and of course, defaulting to Google search.

Nokia a few years ago wanted to do just that - replace Google Maps with their HERE Maps. Google slapped them down - they could not license Play unless Google Maps was a part of it, and it had to be default - you can't bundle your product in and have it be default.

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.

Re:Socialism at its finest.

[Anne Thwacks]

We, the EU citizens, have laws for our protection, in the same way you Americans have guns for yours.

We are quite happy to have our governments fine Google for raping our privacy and stuffing our phones with bloatware, thanks very much. You can have your school massacres.