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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

#41

Post by sfe22 »

londons_explore wrote: post #32
littlecranky67 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Google pays Apple to be the default search provider" If that is the case they might not act anti-competetive but, rumours are [0] Apple received up to $20Bn per year in this deal. It is hard to believe that this payment is just for being the default search engine. I strongly suspect that Apple also agrees to not build their own search engine as long as this deal is on - and if that is the case, there will be a str…

> $20B. It is hard to believe that this payment is just for being the default search engine. Well ask yourself what the value of this placement is? Google earns about $200 per user, mostly in ad revenue. If Google search wasn't default, they'd probably lose half the users. There are 1 billion iPhone users. At $200 each, Google stands to loose $200b. So a price tag of $20b to keep that...

Are you sure that 200 usd is worldwide? Seems like US only

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

#42

Post by paulluuk »

mrtksn wrote: post #18
pronlover723 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wi…

So do you feel that anything other than 100% market share counts as a monopoly? Where would you draw the line?

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

#43

Post by hetspookjee »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #33
Lio wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#5 is the key point to my mind. For example, you can’t just add new search engines to iOS Safari with just a URL. There are a few alternatives to Google but there’s no easy way for a new entrant to get in there. EDIT: Interesting. I’m picking up downvotes for this, is there some way to achieve this (other than jailbreaking) I’ve missed?

I don't know why you get downvotes, this is true, at least for iOS. There's no way a user can add a new search engine, they can only choose one of the five choices.

I'm so happy that Apple keeps me safe of dangerous search engines. /s

I don't get this logic, honestly. What is the point of not being able to add any and all search engines to Apple?

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

#45

Post by planb »

"The complaint charges that Google and Apple agreed that Apple would not compete in the internet search business against Google. [...] The complaint also calls for [...] the breakup of Apple into separate and independent companies"

This doesn't really make sense in my layman's view: They complain that Apple stays out of search (which is not their core business) and then want to break up Apple. For what reason? Because they are operating outside of their core business?

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

#46

Post by politelemon »

dathinab wrote: post #15
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…

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 O…

Sorry you're being downvoted but this is HN and it's common to give Apple benefit of the doubt.

You are right, and the term is monopolistic power, which is different from monopoly. Monopolistic power involves platform abuse which is what you're describing.

Additionally they use their position to enforce their own services, so their forced rollout of Apple Login was an example. Another example is all browsers being forced to use Safari under the hood. It's a repeat of the MS-IE escapades of a few decades ago but everyone's OK with it.

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

#47

Post by mrtksn »

paulluuk wrote: post #42
mrtksn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wi…

So do you feel that anything other than 100% market share counts as a monopoly? Where would you draw the line?

> So do you feel that anything other than 100% market share counts as a monopoly?

No I did not say that. I say, there's a healthy competition and there's no monopoly as people have viable alternatives and in many other countries people choose these alternatives and people where Apple is dominant do have the same alternatives to choose from.

There's no such thing as "right of minimum market share" that Apple violates by selling too many devices.

People do have the options and if they still buy Apple that's not monopoly, that's success.

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

#48

Post by bjohnson225 »

mrtksn wrote: post #18
pronlover723 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wi…

In the UK a market share of 40% is enough for the competition authorities to investigate a company for monopolistic practices. It's less about market share and more about if the company is using its position in one market to create an unfair advantage in another. iOS and Android are both in a position with market power in many countries.

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

#49

Post by Closi »

sdze wrote: post #25

In my opinion Apple is already in the search business. At least Siri prevents a regular web search if Siri found the webpage I was looking for. It offers me directly the link to the page in the suggestions.

This is using Google’s API to provide the search result.

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

#50

Post by mrtksn »

bjohnson225 wrote: post #48
mrtksn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wi…

In the UK a market share of 40% is enough for the competition authorities to investigate a company for monopolistic practices. It's less about market share and more about if the company is using its position in one market to create an unfair advantage in another. iOS and Android are both in a position with market power in many countries.

I agree. Being monopoly isn't even illegal anyway.
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