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Google App Suite Costs as Much as $40 Per Phone Under New EU Android Deal (theverge.com)
Android manufacturers will have to pay Google a surprisingly high cost in Europe in order to include Google's Play Store and other mobile apps on their devices, according to documents obtained by The Verge. From the report: A confidential fee schedule shows costs as high as $40 per device to install the "Google Mobile Services" suite of apps, which includes the Google Play Store. The new fees vary depending on country and device type, and it would apply to devices activated on or after February 1st, 2019. But phone manufacturers may not actually have to shoulder that cost: Google is also offering separate agreements to cover some or all of the licensing costs for companies that choose to install Chrome and Google search on their devices as well, according to a person familiar with the terms. Google declined to comment.
And will Google take legal action?
I will be wiping Google from my phone next month with MicroG. They have worn out their welcome.
Though there are of course games being played here, much in the same way Microsoft did in the 90s. It could easily go the other way in practice, Google pay Apple billions to put their search engine in iOS Safari, so they think it has value. These prices are being set to make a political point.
As much as the more hysterical American /. contingent would prefer their companies to do what they want throughout the world, and the EU is flawed when it comes to regulation, do we really want Google to be able to do anything it wants? There has to be some oversight, so, what?
... and quietly point users at third party resources for installing such themselves? Sure works for third party ROMs like LineageOS.
Sounds to me like Google really didn't like the EU hampering their vertical integration plans and are retaliating by raising the costs of smartphones to people living in the EU area. Then again if you are a company with a motto as benign as "Don't be evil" only to get rid of it then retaliation is probably going to be your standard response to consumer protection laws being enforced.
The specific number seems to be based on the idea that they're going to be losing all revenue from advertising and datamining operations and are simply pulling in that revenue directly from users as a single up-front payment. For comparison's sake Facebook's per-user revenues were about $20 in 2017 so that's probably two year's revenue from datamining and in-app advertising trough Google APIs.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
Not your freedom. Your lack of it. You are the product and this is just a corporation negotiating your price with other corporations. Don't expect a phone to come without Google tax and give you a choice.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I guess they didn't expect Google to act like petulant little children trying to get revenge.
Carriers should just tell Google to fuck off and start including F-Droid and/or Amazon on their devices. Google services are privacy invading jokes anyway and all of my devices run very smoothly without any Google apps polluting them.
Freedom was never free. Everything has a price.
The price for liberty is quite messy and often uncontrollable. That is part of what freedom means.
On the other hand, if you like order, then suck up and welcome your new Fascist overlords. But at least the trains run on time huh?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
No one is saying this. I mean, FDA meat inspectors cost money. So do airbags and seat belts that are required by law. But things just cost money. The funny question is how much other companies will be willing to pay phone manufacturers to put their browsers and search engines onto the phones.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
It means we will get phones without all the forced Google stuff. Great!
I am already happy.
I rather have a price on something that I will not buy than having to pay with my privacy for something I do not want in the first place.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Could backfire and seen as avyse of their market dominance. Very soon we will not need to pay taxes in Europe as the US companies, who think the rules do not apply,will be paying it all.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Smuggling things in to Europe from the UK.
It is like it is the 70s all over again!
Demanding they cease certain activities is one thing, but demanding that they give away their product for free ... that would be.. unprecidented.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Now the Europeans are paying the cost of GDPR and the unbundling case. I'm not saying the browser unbundling or GDPR are bad, but to say it happens at no cost is just being naive. I hope it was worth it for them.
No good deed goes unpunished.
This, right here, is what the Cyanogenmod team could have used before they got crushed.
There's a hell of an opportunity for one of Google's competitors (Amazon, perhaps?) to jam their foot in the very-slightly-opened door, and kick like hell.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
There is no competition. Phone manufacturers will just bundle in Chrome and Google Search in exchange and not have to pay anything.
It was never meant to be free, this was the intended outcome. Google gives manufacturers the option to pay for it or to ship Chrome/Google Search as the defaults. Having a choice is the point.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Samsung,Xiaomi have their own app stores and I believe more will follow soon.
The intended outcome was that GMS was an all-or-nothing package. Google's approach to Android was, "If you want this critical piece of Android that actually makes the phone worth using, you need to license the proprietary GMS package, and to do that you need to ship us as default." Note how all the new licensing terms only apply for phones sold in the EU. If you want to sell a phone outside of the EU, you aren't allowed to drop default Google, and you aren't allowed to ship forks. This is bare-minimum compliance, and the EU should take them to task for that.
they probably could not just give this away even if they wanted too. if they are charging carriers for android and access to the play store then they cant just offer it free to others. chances are many carriers have most favored nation type contracts that says google will always offer it to them at the lowest price it is offered to anyone else.
when you sign a contract like that you dont care what google charges you because you can pass the cost to the consumer when all you competitirs pay the same.
microsoft did thisfor years requiring pc makers to install the OS on every computer if they wanted it on any computer. it wasn't free but it became a cost for the computer that others had to pay too.
don't be evil google just became what it hated-- microsoft.
now they are being forced to debundle it we learn what andriod app suites actually cost the consumer
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It is not up to you what comes on your phone. It is up to the manufacturer.
The question you need to ask is, do you seriously think Samsung, LG, Huawei, etc. are going to go to the trouble of building, packaging, and selling a "Google-free" phone that costs $40 more, for the 0.1% of customers who want said phone?
No, they will not.