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Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

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Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#11

Post by colordrops »

mnd999 wrote: post #5
mjevans wrote: post #3

Would Apple be a monopoly if they did enter the 'search' business? Google at least can leave Android free, and people that ship it able to customize as well as customers able to switch search providers. Apple would have a very vertically integrated stack, and would they allow anyone else making a phone equal access?

Android isn’t free. There is a free kernel but so much of what is useful and expected by users is now wrapped up in play services.

While not perfect, MicroG [1] + Aurora [2] on LineageOS [3] is good enough to get by without Google Play. I've got every app I need running on it, and haven't run into any major issues.

[1] https://microg.org/

[2] https://www.aurorastore.pro/

[3] https://lineage.microg.org/

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#12

Post by laumars »

mrtksn wrote: post #10
mjevans wrote: post #3

Would Apple be a monopoly if they did enter the 'search' business? Google at least can leave Android free, and people that ship it able to customize as well as customers able to switch search providers. Apple would have a very vertically integrated stack, and would they allow anyone else making a phone equal access?

Apple is a monopoly in tech just like Louis Vuitton is a monopoly in luggage, so no. Okay, maybe for US it's Samsonite but for the rest of the world Apple is more like Louis Vuitton - a premium brand that is one of the leaders in design that everyone else follows. Just being popular in some circles doesn't change the fact that they hold a minority share in the market. Maybe people in Orange County might believe that…

Except there is already precedence regarding their App Store. So if Apple defaulted to their own search engine and didn’t allow a way of changing that default then the courts might well find that anti-competitive too.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#13

Post by pronlover723 »

mrtksn wrote: post #10
mjevans wrote: post #3

Would Apple be a monopoly if they did enter the 'search' business? Google at least can leave Android free, and people that ship it able to customize as well as customers able to switch search providers. Apple would have a very vertically integrated stack, and would they allow anyone else making a phone equal access?

Apple is a monopoly in tech just like Louis Vuitton is a monopoly in luggage, so no. Okay, maybe for US it's Samsonite but for the rest of the world Apple is more like Louis Vuitton - a premium brand that is one of the leaders in design that everyone else follows. Just being popular in some circles doesn't change the fact that they hold a minority share in the market. Maybe people in Orange County might believe that…

They don't hold a minority share. Monopolies are not decided by the world, they're decided by countries for that country's market

Plenty of sites claim they have a majority in the USA

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...

UK

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-kin...

Japan

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/japan

Each of those countries could easily bring suit. They wouldn't care at all that in some other country Apple is not the largest player.

Louis Vuitton is a bad example as their market share is tiny. AFAIK there is no clothing brand with a market percent as large as Apple's mobile market percent. Maybe Luxotica in eyewear but some articles claim their market is only around 20%

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#14

Post by laumars »

wumpus wrote: post #6
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can they be a monopoly with a 15% market share in smart phones (Q2 ‘21 sales) and similarly low market shares in other areas?

Apple users are richer, so Apple users' share of search ad revenues is a lot bigger than Apple's apparent 15% market share.

I used to think this way too but recent cases against the iPhones App Store have shown that some courts are willing to look at the iPhone as one market.

What that means is that Apple entering search doesn’t by default make them a monopoly nor anti-competitive. But if they then change iPhones to only support “Apple Search” with no option to change that default, then Apple could be liable for claims including abuse of monopoly.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#15

Post by dathinab »

mrtksn wrote: post #10
mjevans wrote: post #3

Would Apple be a monopoly if they did enter the 'search' business? Google at least can leave Android free, and people that ship it able to customize as well as customers able to switch search providers. Apple would have a very vertically integrated stack, and would they allow anyone else making a phone equal access?

Apple is a monopoly in tech just like Louis Vuitton is a monopoly in luggage, so no. Okay, maybe for US it's Samsonite but for the rest of the world Apple is more like Louis Vuitton - a premium brand that is one of the leaders in design that everyone else follows. Just being popular in some circles doesn't change the fact that they hold a minority share in the market. Maybe people in Orange County might believe that…

Apple is a OS monopoly on the Apple hardware platform which affects millions of people with marked effects which can make switching away from it costy and hard.

It abuses this Monopoly position to force through other products, like it's app store, and give major advantage to it's services over the competition. Sometimes outright debiting l denying it's competition marked entry.

Even if we only look at a while phone OS marked it's a dis dual pool with Google (all attendings a minor enough to not matter). And both abuse this close to Monopol position, though one more then the other.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#16

Post by danielheath »

awestroke wrote: post #7
mnd999 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android isn’t free. There is a free kernel but so much of what is useful and expected by users is now wrapped up in play services.

I've never paid to use play services. If you did, you were scammed

Phone manufacturers incur costs to get it installed. Do you imagine they decide not to pass those on?

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#17

Post by dpark »

”The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the competition of smaller competitors and foreclosing competitors from the search market; (6) acquiring actual and potential competitors.”

Except for #6, this is literally “Google pays Apple to be the default search provider.”

The alternative option seems to be that Apple is for some reason required to use their position to enter the search market.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#18

Post by mrtksn »

pronlover723 wrote: post #13
mrtksn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is a monopoly in tech just like Louis Vuitton is a monopoly in luggage, so no. Okay, maybe for US it's Samsonite but for the rest of the world Apple is more like Louis Vuitton - a premium brand that is one of the leaders in design that everyone else follows. Just being popular in some circles doesn't change the fact that they hold a minority share in the market. Maybe people in Orange County might believe that…

They don't hold a minority share. Monopolies are not decided by the world, they're decided by countries for that country's market Plenty of sites claim they have a majority in the USA https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta... UK https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-kin... Japan https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/japan Each of those countries could easily bring…

That's hardly a monopoly, there's hardly any absence of competition. Even if it was a monopoly it would't be illegal by default but it's not a monopoly anyway. It's more like %50 to %70 of the people in US/JP/UK have chosen to purchase the products of that company but they could have chosen any other brand that is available to them. In fact, people in countries of similar affluence have chosen the other way around with France %63, Netherlands %54, Germany %58, Spain %78 Android and there's nothing stopping the UK/US/JP do the exactly the same as the alternatives are available and competative.

It looks like Apple managed to design devices that Americans like more than the ones the other brands designed and there's nothing wrong about it.

Can Apple abuse it's position position in the market, even the smallest company can do that but the key is that if that happens people do have the option to do purchases from somewhere else.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#19

Post by raverbashing »

dpark wrote: post #17

”The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the comp…

It's been a while since I've seen a paragraph that badly written (I mean, the quoted part)

It's a Press Release from a law firm but I'm not sure I would take a law firm that writes like this seriously.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#20

Post by aero-glide2 »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #2

Just a reminder here folks that anyone can sue for anything. That doesn't mean that evidence will show any of the claims are true, but it will be interesting to follow and see what evidence they claim to have. Note Google is now incorporated in Delaware so it does seem that venue may be an issue.

Even if the lawsuit fails we may get to see internal emails https://twitter.com/techemails
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