Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by oblio » Thu, May 13, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

jamescostian wrote: post #101

gverrilla wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but then he wouldn't get to feel smart and make fun of me :-)

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

#112

Post by spoonjim » Thu, May 13, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

KMag wrote: post #71

speedgoose wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google leaves the Italian market, Italy could have a chance to create a local Google. Google's scale is huge and they have a lot of products, but a subset of these products, such as tracking, ads, search, emails, and videos, is achievable for a country like Italy in my opinion.

Maybe. I worked at Google on the indexing team from 2006-2010. During that time, I vaguely remember some announcement of a government-funded search engine project in France to beat Google. If I remember correctly, it wasn't the first time France tried a government-funded search engine. I suspect it's more a problem of network effects than it's a problem of money. Google just has so much data at this point that it's r…

The biggest blocker is talent. Who’s going to join the French Government’s Google at 1/3 the pay with no sushi in the cafeteria?

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

#113

Post by spoonjim » Thu, May 13, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

danuker wrote: post #66

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.

How do you know those were not automated systems?

Could have been, but then we got rejected for something which would have been hard to detect automatically.

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

#114

Post by spoonjim » Thu, May 13, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #44

spoonjim wrote: post #41

Good for Italy -- they have no chance of creating a Google, so their best path to tech dollars is a regular cadence of these $100m fines (but not so often that Big Tech exits the Italian market).

> Good for Italy -- they have no chance of creating a Google, so their best path to tech dollars is a regular cadence of these $100m fines (but not so often that Big Tech exits the Italian market). Are you saying that it's not that Google was wrong here, but that the Italian government want to parasitize on Google?

Yes

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

#115

Post by rattlesnakedave » Thu, May 13, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

bsdubernerd wrote: post #16

icpmoles wrote: post #5

Quick summary: the biggest electricity provider in the country (ENEL) made an app (Juicepass) to find and manage their charging stations across the country. The Android Auto functionality of the app has been rejected by Google for non disclosed "security concerns while driving". The antitrust ruled out it was because Google wanted to sabotage competitor apps to the charging stations finder built-in in the Google Maps…

And a quick reminder to everybody else that walled gardens don't actually help the consumer. They only arbitrarily restrict choice, they don't actually improve security (if any, that's provided by the sandboxing, not by the store "review"). If this company (ENEL) wasn't a huge state-wide electric company (inheriting their power and ties from the previous state-owned monopoly) how many chances do you think they had to…

As an Apple consumer, having a “walled garden” is great for UX, IMO. I don’t have to deal with a ton of shitty wallet apps, everything is in one App Store, etc.

I find this much preferable to the situation on Android.

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

#116

Post by spoonjim » Thu, May 13, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

johschmitz wrote: post #55

StavrosK wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good for Italy -- they have no chance of creating a Google, so their best path to tech dollars is a regular cadence of these $100m fines (but not so often that Big Tech exits the Italian market). Are you saying that it's not that Google was wrong here, but that the Italian government want to parasitize on Google?

How I understand it he is saying Google is willing to pay for "being wrong" or rather "behaving in certain ways". Now it is just kind of a fee and both sides are happy. Maybe not the perfect situation for the customers but between the two parties and with the current legal framework the deal makes sense. Doesn't it? Should we be surprised about any of the two parties optimizing their position within the given constra…

Yep - on the spectrum of possibilities the ones that preserve the status quo are most preferable to Google.

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

#117

Post by philistine » Thu, May 13, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #95

zimbatm wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large part of the stability can be attributed to sandboxing. This is what prevents apps from gaining unprivileged access and destabilizing the system. This is the time where relatives will call you. What you don't see, is all the apps that steal the user's data. Curation obviously helps but it's difficult to measure to what extent.

It has to be both to work; the sandbox would fail in a day if there were no review/revocation system.

I'd argue only the revocation is needed. macOS is moving towards that model: every app requires notarization, Apple provides it without asking questions, but reserves the right to revoke the running privileges of any app. This makes so much more sense.

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

#118

Post by citizenkeen » Thu, May 13, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

wwtrv wrote: post #105

simion314 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cod…

Regardless

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

#119

Post by holoduke » Thu, May 13, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

A good thing. My business unfortunately rely on the Playstore. Every update we submit I have nightmares about a rejected update or somekind of violation. I am active since the start of the store. On average once every 2 years we have a very serious issue with an app being suspended for a a reason we do not understand. I am lucky to have some ties to people inside Google, otherwise I would probably have lost (no joke) millions.

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

#120

Post by bugfix » Thu, May 13, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

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.

It is actually pretty easy. As long as you don't use any private APIs, you can completely change the behavior of your app after the review by changing server side settings.