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Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

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Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I want to discuss how deviously literal the Supreme Court decided to be in order to avoid letting anyone establish any precedent about what was or wasn't a legal abortion. The original filing said "It is also Dr. Karsan’s good faith belief and medical recommendation that that the Emergent Medical Condition Exception to Texas’s abortion bans and laws permits an abortion in Ms. Cox’s cir…

What I never understood is how Republicans can be for one type of abortion say before 6 weeks but not for 15 weeks? What is their rationale? If Bible says that abortion is murder, and life begins at conception, then how can they allow abortion at 6 weeks and vote for that?

The bible doesn't say anything at all about abortion. It wouldn't matter if it did though, because they have no problem ignoring plenty of things that actually are in it when it would conflict with political success.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#502
post #381
post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google has the monopoly, Apple, by definition, cannot.

Google only has the monopoly in Android app distribution. Apple has it in iOS app distribution.

That’s like saying Porsche has a monopoly on all red mid-engine German sports coupes. Apps run on pocket computing devices with phone and data connectivity. Two operating systems compete in that space.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic already lost the trial in the Apple case. Courts in the US and other countries have treated Google differently as an OS provider to OEMs than Apple as a single vendor. Would they also make Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft open up their platforms?

Why shouldn't they? I know for sure that if it were possible to sideload software onto my Switch or PS5, that would definitely benefit me as a consumer. The fact that I have a reasonably powerful computer attached to my TV but can't install software on it without convincing Sony to sell me a janky dev kit for way too much money is just wasteful. Just about the only objection I can imagine is "piracy", but the locked-…

If only you could buy a “powerful computer” to attach to your TV where you could download software from anywhere…

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I want to discuss how deviously literal the Supreme Court decided to be in order to avoid letting anyone establish any precedent about what was or wasn't a legal abortion. The original filing said "It is also Dr. Karsan’s good faith belief and medical recommendation that that the Emergent Medical Condition Exception to Texas’s abortion bans and laws permits an abortion in Ms. Cox’s cir…

What I never understood is how Republicans can be for one type of abortion say before 6 weeks but not for 15 weeks? What is their rationale? If Bible says that abortion is murder, and life begins at conception, then how can they allow abortion at 6 weeks and vote for that?

This is a tangent within a tangent, but it's basically a political strategy. Abortion bans are deeply unpopular, even in many Republican-majority states. By framing it "after six weeks", they're attempting to project the image that they're the reasonable ones. After all, women would have had six whole weeks to make up their mind! And it will allow an escape hatch for women in rape or incest situations.

As a practical matter, they know that many women won't realize they're pregnant until it's too late to feasibly schedule the procedure. They're minimizing the number of abortions while moving what the American public sees as reasonable from 24 weeks to 6. Once everyone's used to six, they can reduce it even more.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AuroraStore is very close, using a ton of reverse engineered stuff from the play store It should all totally be open though

I don't fully understand. Are these functionalities baked into Android that only allow Play Store to use it?

Pretty much. Google Play services runs as like a root process that can (among other things) bypass all the security checks that the OS usually has. That includes those annoying update confirmation dialogs which make it impossible to install updates automatically without user interaction.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#506
post #350
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it’s common law, not civil law. So lawyers, juries, judges and so on all heavily influenced the Epic Games v Apple outcome, as they did in Epic Games v Google. The next time someone sues Apple for this, there will be precedent. But then again, Epic Games v Apple might be used as precedent in Google’s appeal. EDIT/correction: Apparently, only appellate and higher courts can set precedent for case law. So it migh…

>The next time someone sues Apple for this, there will be precedent. Trial courts don't set precedent, only an appellate court or higher can set a precedent, and that precedent is only binding on lower courts. Since trial courts are the lowest courts, their decisions are not binding on any future trial and as a general matter do not set any kind of precedent.

It's kind of wild to see someone confidently posting legal analysis while obviously lacking an understanding of - uh - precedent.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I'm suggesting that Apple won theirs because they are more important in the eyes of the corrupt government and that's what it takes to win. There can only be one winner. Second place is a loser. Just wait 10 or 20 years. Watch the system concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands and people blame everything under the sun except the design of the system. I think the winner will probably be either Microsoft or Ora…

How exactly does this work, in your opinion? Does "The Government" (one entity) somehow decide on something like this and forces a specific judge to rule in a certain way? If something like this was uncovered, it'd be way bigger than this lawsuit. And while you have a bit of a point about Oracle being stagnant... Microsoft? They own and develop tons of things. Microsoft isn't just Windows and Office.

It's just moneyed interests manipulating things behind the scenes. They can influence which judge will be assigned to a case, they can lobby politicians to add special loopholes to new legislation which suits them preferentially. Big companies have hundreds or sometimes thousands of lawyers with plenty of time to oversee every small detail of every case they're involved in and every law that affects them. They will offer loyal politicians and judges fancy jobs after they finish office.

I don't think this will be uncovered because you need money to have a voice in this system and as this serves the bigger moneyed interests, anyone who has an incentive to cry foul will find that their cries fall on deaf ears. Also, PR firms will manufacture narratives to spin things to make the people who are complaining seem like a lunatics. They will also gaslight individuals who raise alarms to lower their confidence. In many cases, they can dig up dirt on whistleblowers and have them jailed. In some cases they can manufacture dirt on whilsleblowers (e.g. Julian Assange) to have them jailed to send a message to future whistleblowers. So they can hold the fort for a very long time.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#508

It will be extremely interesting to see how this shapes android going forward. Google didn’t just lose some point— they lost every point > The jury unanimously answered yes to every question put before them — that Google has monopoly power in the Android app distribution markets and in-app billing services markets, that Google did anticompetitive things in those markets, and that Epic was injured by that behavior. Th…

How is this not all true for Apple and its app store?

Epic vs Apple was decided by a judge. (The judge suggested a trial by jury but both Epic and Apple declined.) Since the judge decided it there's a written record and rationale for the decisions. Epic's argument was "Apple has a monopoly on the Apple App Store market". Apple's argument was "we don't have a monopoly on the games market". The Judge's decision was: "Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the digital mobile gaming transaction market". This was later appealed and the ruling was upheld.

Epic vs Google was decided by a jury and God only knows what they were thinking. (All jury notes, doodles, etc are destroyed afterwards).

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So they dont look at precedents in court system in USA ? I literally described how that impacts things: "The appellate process and the system of binding precedent goes with it serves to somewhat make things more consistent overall than individual trial court processes would when considered over a longer time and a larger number of cases".

Its funny how "binding precedent" doesnt apply to the same court that gave both decisions. It is the Northern district Court of california. Thus precedents mean nothing and Jury is free to give arbitrary decisions.

> Its funny how "binding precedent" doesnt apply to the same court that gave both decisions.

I dunno, the fact that precedent is only binding when it is from a higher appellate court to a court subordinate to that appellate court isn't what I'd describe as "funny", just rather sensible.

> Thus precedents mean nothing

Not that I've seen any inconsistent legal ruling offered between the two cases. The fact that the broad outline of the case is similar doesn't mean the decisive legal questions are, but, yes, precedent from a trial court decision isn't binding (same or different court), only, at best, persuasive, and then only if it is a citable (published) decision in the first place, which most trial court decisions are not.

> Jury is free to give arbitrary decisions.

Well, no, the jury is "free" to give answers that the trial judge finds to be reasonably supported by the evidence to the questions the trial judge poses to the jury.

And that's not directly affected by precedent anyway, precedent only governs questions of law, not fact, and juries don't answer questions of law, only fact.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#510
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean a lot of it just doesn’t apply. Google was caught paying off Samsung to encourage them not to put alternate app stores on their devices. Squashing competition where it should exist. Apple makes the devices, so they aren’t making others squash competition. They’re exactly what they say.

Apple made deals to set the default search engine and the default maps app, and rejected other app stores. As bad as Google is, Apple is even worse, setting worse terms for deals and rejecting other deals outright to favor their own products.

Your second sentence is not even remotely supported by the first.
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