Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

repubblica.it

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 289 posts

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#101

Post by jamescostian »

gverrilla wrote: post #77
oblio wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing concise yet non cryptic messages is both an art and a skill. Might be worth practicing.

Everything is cryptic before we understand it. When we talk for instance about Google, governments, fines, power balance, etc, we're refering at least to an immense superposition of complex systems, or perhaps you could say an hypercomplexity, or perhaps totality may be the best word depending on your perspective. In that context, my cryptic poetics only constitute an heuristic which has the intent to provoke thought…

I'd like to help you see how to write more concise messages. Here's how I'd rewrite your entire message:

"This is a very complex subject matter, and I don't know how to express my thoughts on it concisely. I don't want to get downvoted for my long-windedness."

It's less than a 1/5 of characters, but conveys just as much of the on-topic and non-meta parts of your response.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#102

Post by sneak »

nickflood wrote: post #99
sneak wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Web browsers don't have widely known glaring security holes in them even though their vendors don't approve the content that's viewed through them. Anything widely known gets fixed quickly. There are plenty of holes in browser sandboxing. The number approximately doubles as soon as you look at anything !Chrome, too.

Yeah, but by that same logic there may be unknown holes in app review and app sandbox as well. And since Apple aren't big on publicising their missteps (while Chrome is developed in the open), we may never really know how secure the app store model really is.

> Yeah, but by that same logic there may be unknown holes in app review and app sandbox as well.

To exploit those you need to get past app review in the first place, though, and the type of code that can do stuff like this for the most part sticks out like a sore thumb when subjected to static analysis.

Most of Apple's checks around this stuff are automated, I understand, and are applied to every submission instantly.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#103

Post by [deleted] »

gruez wrote: post #87
evidencebased wrote: post #79

This is a huge reason why China imposes certain rules on foreign corps if they wanted to operate there. The media and politicians makes it all about politics, but it is an entirely reasonable way to deal with foreign mega corps. Local competitors would not survive against something like Google without government protection. 100 mil fine every once in a while is just the cost of doing business for them. How many simil…

>Local competitors would not survive against something like Google without government protection So you want them to be protected. In other words, protectionism?

[deleted]

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#104

Post by dan-robertson »

wccrawford wrote: post #53
Chris2048 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and to explain further; The first instance of "ruling" in a judicial sense probably derives from rule (i.e dictat/maxim). To "rule out" is to use a ruler to cross a line through something in a written list of items, thereby eliminating it from consideration.

But also in colloquial English, "rule out" means "eliminate by logic". Like, "use the rules to take it out of possibility".

I don’t think this is an accurate definition or etymology. The phrase can mean “formally remove” or just “eliminate”. I think it always alludes to using a stick of wood to draw a line rather than a regulation or law.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#105

Post by wwtrv »

simion314 wrote: post #81
threeseed wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) Apple has invested heavily in automated review methods over the years. b) I don't know what qualifications you think an app reviewer needs. They are not looking through the code but simply playing with the app on a range of devices. c) It is only a few hours for updates. Initial app submissions often take days/weeks and are very thorough.

> a) Apple has invested heavily in automated review methods over the years. There was a news here where malware was found on the Apple iOS store, and Apple changed their mind in the last moment and refused to inform the victims. The reality show you (if you want to see) that - malware happens (you can't make automatic analysis code to detect all possible issues ) - Apple users will mostly have a wrong image of the St…

You need register with a real name and credit card and pay 100$ to be able to publish anything on the app store. Irregardless of how effective the review process is even if you manage to sneak any app with malware past it Apple will still be able to remotely remove it from every user’s device and ban your account. This alone make the Appstore inherently safer than any system which would allow side loading.

As for code, they run relatively extensive automatic tests to detect whether private (banned/undocumented) APIs are used, I don’t know how effective they are at catching malware, though.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#106

Post by bjohnson225 »

frockington1 wrote: post #100
waheoo wrote: post #3

It's almost like the government's around the world are waking up to the fact they can actually push back on the ultra mega corps of the world. Or they're seeing weakness in the US and taking their geopolitical shots.

Google is probably a bigger economic unit than Italy at this point. Much of Europe has yet to recover economically since the 2000 market crash and Italy is worse off than most. I doubt its taking geopolitical shots and more trying to find any source of revenue they can

> more trying to find any source of revenue they can

€100M would be about 0.0000125% of the revenue Italy expects in 2021. It's totally irrelevant to the national budget.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#107

Post by mupuff1234 »

spoonjim wrote: post #36
oblio wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walled gardens are just security theater. The App Store revenue was $72bn in 2020, yet the review time for an app is a few hours. App reviewers barely have any qualifications, they're just "call center operators" running off a script.

I've watched the App Store reviewers try out apps (not in person, from logging) and they do seem to do a pretty thorough job of exercising the functionality.

That makes me wonder how easy it is to just hide certain features during the review process.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#108

Post by bagacrap »

oblio wrote: post #27
dalbasal wrote: post #26

The way antitrust is working in recent years is kind of ridiculous. Google in Europe is becoming a rich case study in antitrust meh. You find that adwords engages in a blatant "monopolistic abuse" in some specific sense. In the Adwords EU case for example, Google was both monopsonising (google search) and monopolising search advertising. But, the actual violations are specific, like exclusivity requirements and other…

> IMO, we need some way to declare a company "Big" and apply special rules to them. If those rules are onerous, that might create some organic pressure to split and/or help smaller incumbents compete. Past a point, they should be regulated like an utility.

because our utilities work so well and don't function at all like monopolies

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#109

Post by oblio »

bagacrap wrote: post #108
oblio wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMO, we need some way to declare a company "Big" and apply special rules to them. If those rules are onerous, that might create some organic pressure to split and/or help smaller incumbents compete. Past a point, they should be regulated like an utility.

because our utilities work so well and don't function at all like monopolies

Utilities are super heavily regulated. I'm not sure for the US, but for example frequently they can't enter new markets, so they can't leverage their monopoly to crush competition in other markets.

And regarding working well, aren't a lot of people in favor of municipal broadband (an utility) vs Verizon & co. (oligopoly, not even a full blown monopoly)?

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#110

Post by bassdropvroom »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #107
spoonjim wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've watched the App Store reviewers try out apps (not in person, from logging) and they do seem to do a pretty thorough job of exercising the functionality.

That makes me wonder how easy it is to just hide certain features during the review process.

VW should hire this person!
Post reply on HN