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Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

googleplaydevelopersettlement.com

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Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#121

Post by bmitc »

largbae wrote: post #68
paulryanrogers wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a risk that settling sweeps chronic, bad behavior under the rug. Which is especially bad when powerful actors can use settlement to coerce victims into hiding the truth, and enabling future bad behaviors.

It absolutely does that... but the victim(s) sign the settlement, so it seems they are not ready to die on that hill.

This is the issue though with these large companies. They have such immense wealth and power in the courts that they're basically untouchable. They do what they want and then pay people off without ever admitting guilt to make the flies go away.

Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#122

Post by DannyBee »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #95
DannyBee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civil litigation is just a dispute resolving mechanism, not a right/wrong decider.

IANAL. In this context, possibly not. However, in US courts, culpability is a major consideration in many types of civil litigation. Lawsuits concerning malpractice, contract violations, torturous interference, defamation, wrongful death, etc. go beyond merely mediating a dispute.

No, actually, they don't. Really. In all of the things you list, the main damages are viewed as monetary, and the expected relief is monetary.

This is actually what gets so many people upset - people see it as, like, "they killed my son" and the civil court's #1 job is literally to figure out "how much should someone pay for killing your son".

That is a mismatch for how people often feel about it (they really want the court to help prevent it from happening, etc), but for the most part, civil courts can't do that effectively It's a little more nuanced than that, since there are "punitive damages" and such, but as far as mechanisms to improve society go, it's not necessarily the right hammer for all the nails.

So like I said, there is a small amount of injunctive relief/etc, but the vast majority of civil litigation has a monetary outcome.

If you are interested, it may be worth reading some of the history of how these systems came about - the transformation from two people walking in front of the king and asking him to settle their issue, to what we have now.

Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#123

Post by cft »

kobalsky wrote: post #120
cft wrote: post #59

We developed a free social media application back in 2016 that cost us about $500,000 to build. We provided multiple safety filters including world filters, neural net pornography detection for profile avatars, etc. The application had a user profile search function. We had about 100,000 downloads in less than a year. I'm sure that 99.9% of user profiles did not contain any sexual material. Certainly less than Twitte…

> Certainly less than Twitter has, where you can search for explicit porn Where you using the same content rating as Twitter?

Same, 18+

Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#124

Post by rahimnathwani »

krisoft wrote: post #119
gretch wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As citizens of a democracy, we (theoretically) get to have a say in how courts are run That’s not the point of civil cases between 2 private parties. If you want your say, call your congress person and vote for platforms which intend to introduce legislation. (Or whichever process your country uses). Not every proceeding has to be about deciding good vs evil. Things have their place.

Yes. That is what the comment is talking about. It says "maybe the rules need re-examining". That is not about a particular civil case. That is proposing exactly what you are saying. > If you want your say, call your congress person and vote for platforms which intend to introduce legislation. Or they also can post publicly on a forum where people discuss things. Such as this one. As such raising awareness about the…

"You are acting as if that is not a valid use of this forum."

I didn't read it that way. GP wasn't suggesting calling a congressman as an alternative to posting on a forum, but as an alternative to a civil suit.

AIUI their point is that the purpose of civil suits is to settle disputes between two parties and (unlike calling your congressman) not about establishing laws defining good and bad.

Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#125

Post by mrguyorama »

jonas21 wrote: post #28
capableweb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What alternative is there? No need to find an alternative. Same outcome but remove the "Ok, sure I'm guilty, but I don't admit to actually doing it". If you agree to lose the case, agree that you're in the wrong.

The plaintiffs are free to not settle and continue the case if that's what they want. Are you proposing that they should be forced to do that?

What's good for an individual set of plaintiffs (mostly their lawyers) is actively unhealthy and unhelpful for society as a whole, and indeed should be avoided.

Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#126

Post by Maursault »

depressedpanda wrote: post #79
Maursault wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but also the way they bundle programs in their operating systems, compared to Microsoft browser case in EU. Microsoft was blocking competitors by requiring a fee for every processor sold by a manufacturer that offered Windows, whether that machine was sold with Windows or not, causing any other operating system sold on licensee machines to be more expensive for consumers. It wasn't bundling that was the issue in Mi…

> You can delete Safari and every application Apple bundles This is not possible on iPhone though. You can't even run any other browser than (reskinned) Safari.

> This is not possible on iPhone though.

mobile Safari is embedded in iOS. It can be deleted by jailbreaking and gaining root access, but removing it would cause iOS to malfunction. You can't delete it entirely from iPhone, but you can effectively delete it by removing it from the Springboard, entirely disable it in Settings (using Content & Privacy Restrictions, toggle the switch next to it in Allowed apps), and make it undiscoverable.

And although all web browsers on iOS use WebKit, there are effectively only two browser rendering engines still used today, WebKit and Gecko. And only FireFox uses Gecko. Every other browser uses WebKit or an engine derived from WebKit. So while Apple considers allowing the other rendering engine,[1] Gecko, I guess you're stuck using any other browser other than the official Gecko version of FireFox. There's a WebKit version of FireFox for iOS, if you can stand to use it.

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2022/12/13/apple-mulls-opening-browser-e...

Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#127

Post by Maursault »

saagarjha wrote: post #105
Maursault wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Applications on macOS are just bundles in the sense they are just a special kind of directory that contains the executable and supporting files. Any application in the Applications directory will require Administrator privileges to delete, but the entire folder can be deleted if you want, including the Utilities folder and all utilities. With SIP disabled and root access, you can delete everything in macO…

No, you can’t, because they’re on a signed system volume that can’t be modified when the system is booted.

Try disabling SIP first, as I specified.[1]

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/disabling...

Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#128

Post by saagarjha »

Maursault wrote: post #127
saagarjha wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can’t, because they’re on a signed system volume that can’t be modified when the system is booted.

Try disabling SIP first, as I specified.[1] [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/disabling...

I know how to disable SIP. It does not change what I mentioned.

Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#129

Post by saagarjha »

jefftk wrote: post #115
saagarjha wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Settlements apply to anyone who could be a potential victim and strip them of their rights to sue, unless they opt out (this is insane to me!). So in this case the lawsuit filers settling actually does enforce bad behavior for society at large.

> Settlements apply to anyone who could be a potential victim and strip them of their rights to sue, unless they opt out (this is insane to me!). How would you solve the problem that class action suits are trying to solve while fixing the problem that someone else might end up speaking for you without you wanting them to? Note that this feature isn't specific to settlements; it also happens with judgments.

Settlements already have companies contact you to ask you to opt out, they should change that to opting in.

Re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation

#130

Post by Maursault »

saagarjha wrote: post #128
Maursault wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try disabling SIP first, as I specified.[1] [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/disabling...

I know how to disable SIP. It does not change what I mentioned.

True. What you mentioned was always false.[1] macOS is BSD. Everything is a file in BSD. Anything that is a file can be deleted. Next time, try not to assume that something can't be done just because you don't know how to do it. Just assume you don't know how to do something when you don't know how to do it, not that it can't be done.

[1] https://nektony.com/how-to/uninstall-default-apple-apps-on-m...

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