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Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

android.googlesource.com

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Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#41

Post by euyyn »

peterwwillis wrote: post #34
mrep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can choose a different phone OS, and you can choose a different browser on that OS. Also, both of those things are open source so you can fork them if you want. How do you think it violates antitrust laws? Do you propose that all companies should be required to make all of their features available on all possible variational usage of their service?

IANAL, but the product tying interpretation of US antitrust law specifies that making one product or service a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service can be considered an anticompetitive practice. The "feature" in question in their application was "searching the web". Imagine if they shipped a default e-mail client that only allowed you to use Gmail, and you had to install a separate cli…

The government didn't buy it because Microsoft threatened OEMs that dared preinstall Netscape in the Windows computers they wanted to sell, among other things.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#42

Post by TeMPOraL »

systoll wrote: post #35
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It may be largely inconsequential, it may be cynically obvious, it may be not worth fussing about, but not "perfectly reasonable".

> Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It's also not a realistic scenario. Anyone who bought a Samsung Galaxy S from Verizon got a phone with Bing as the default search engine. Some of the people who bought that phone would've preferred Google. Because of this feature, there was adde…

Isn't this pretty much the same thing Microsoft got fined for with Internet Explorer back in the heyday era of PCs?

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#43

Post by gcb0 »

systoll wrote: post #35
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It may be largely inconsequential, it may be cynically obvious, it may be not worth fussing about, but not "perfectly reasonable".

> Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It's also not a realistic scenario. Anyone who bought a Samsung Galaxy S from Verizon got a phone with Bing as the default search engine. Some of the people who bought that phone would've preferred Google. Because of this feature, there was adde…

you are complaining exactly about the change Google's anonymous coward added.

if that change wasn't made, you could change the default search in both cases. now thanks to Google greed you are stuck with Samsung choice of bing. suck to be you.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#45

Post by srtjstjsj »

fyfy18 wrote: post #30
mrep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can choose a different phone OS, and you can choose a different browser on that OS. Also, both of those things are open source so you can fork them if you want. How do you think it violates antitrust laws? Do you propose that all companies should be required to make all of their features available on all possible variational usage of their service?

This is no different than when Microsoft got hit by fines and was forced to include the browser chooser. You were still free to install Firefox or Linux, but the issue was that the defaults on new PCs used Microsoft products, and most people use the default options.

Of course it's different.

For 1, what was the market landscape for smartphone websearch in 2009?

For 2, The Microsoft decision was the result of complex litigation relating to the specifics of microsoft's position in the market, defining what the "market" even was, and the nature of newly invented web browsers, and the conclusions reached in that trial were quickly disregarded by the prosecutor/government within a few years. There's no bright-line law here.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#46

Post by srtjstjsj »

peterwwillis wrote: post #34
mrep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can choose a different phone OS, and you can choose a different browser on that OS. Also, both of those things are open source so you can fork them if you want. How do you think it violates antitrust laws? Do you propose that all companies should be required to make all of their features available on all possible variational usage of their service?

IANAL, but the product tying interpretation of US antitrust law specifies that making one product or service a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service can be considered an anticompetitive practice. The "feature" in question in their application was "searching the web". Imagine if they shipped a default e-mail client that only allowed you to use Gmail, and you had to install a separate cli…

> Imagine if they shipped a default e-mail client that only allowed you to use Gmail, and you had to install a separate client to use e-mail with any other e-mail provider.

That's how Google Android works now. There originally was a generic email app, but Google quickly replaced it with Gmail early on.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#47

Post by refoundglory »

realusername wrote: post #31
mrep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can choose a different phone OS, and you can choose a different browser on that OS. Also, both of those things are open source so you can fork them if you want. How do you think it violates antitrust laws? Do you propose that all companies should be required to make all of their features available on all possible variational usage of their service?

Android has 75% market share, it's not like you can avoid it, they have practically a monopoly. As much as people like Apple here, it's nowhere near the same market share as Android. Also you should put quotes around open-source, AOSP does not run on any real device due to a lot of android parts being private + private drivers. It took me one month to run a custom kernel on my Samsung to get the basic hardware workin…

No, Android is a "you need corporate resources to adapt this" kind of open source.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#48

Post by srtjstjsj »

dlbucci wrote: post #16
DennisAleynikov wrote: post #4

What an interesting way to go about making an uncomfortable but important decision. This is Google's platform and they should do with it what they want, it's incredible how much search has changed our interaction with our phone. There isn't a day that goes by where I'm not finding everything I need with a quick google search. If google doesn't control the searches end to end on android they would have missed out on s…

I'm not seeing how those two things are related. Google could have still developed Instant Apps/Google Now without restricting users choice of search engine. And if those users missed out on those features because they use duckduckgo or whatever, so be it. At least it was their choice, right?

DennisAleynikov is saying that Google's forcing everyone to use Google Search generates data that Google uses to make DennisAleynikov's search experience better, which he appreciates. Selfish, but honest.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#49

Post by slavik81 »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #46
peterwwillis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but the product tying interpretation of US antitrust law specifies that making one product or service a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service can be considered an anticompetitive practice. The "feature" in question in their application was "searching the web". Imagine if they shipped a default e-mail client that only allowed you to use Gmail, and you had to install a separate cli…

> Imagine if they shipped a default e-mail client that only allowed you to use Gmail, and you had to install a separate client to use e-mail with any other e-mail provider. That's how Google Android works now. There originally was a generic email app, but Google quickly replaced it with Gmail early on.

The app may be called gmail, but it works just as well with my hotmail account as it does with my gmail account.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#50

Post by archi42 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42
systoll wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It's also not a realistic scenario. Anyone who bought a Samsung Galaxy S from Verizon got a phone with Bing as the default search engine. Some of the people who bought that phone would've preferred Google. Because of this feature, there was adde…

Isn't this pretty much the same thing Microsoft got fined for with Internet Explorer back in the heyday era of PCs?

That'd exactly my thought as well. Maybe Google Search is not big enough in terms of market share to trigger an investigation? Or the authorities didn't think of it?
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