Nice way to pay for things, fining the crap out of foreign companies.
Be nice if those foreign companies followed the rules.
As it is they seem to make very rude guests.
European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
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Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
#162The absence of competition is a sign a free market is not working as intended. The rules and benefits of free markets ceases to apply. A monopoly is a market failure and requires intervention.
Free market advocates are always talking about regulations and the need for free markets but don't seem to care so much about monopolies, outsize profits, the accumulation of market power and its abuse that further impedes the operation of free markets and the billionaires that result.
Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that antitrust laws like these are very selectively enforced. Selection and prosecution of these cases is hence inherently political as these are non-standardized arguments or verdicts.
That only means that Google did (or should have done) a risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis on getting fined by the EU on this topic.
I'm guessing that they did, and probably came to the conclusion that they'll make more money than the fine that gets imposed. I wonder if they were right?
Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
#164Very slightly off topic but I actually think how Android handles default apps is the best of both worlds. It comes with very very good default Google Apps that work well together but it is very easy to switch out whatever you want for an alternative. How iOS handles it is the opposite. For their default apps they either straight out not allow competitors, severely limit what their competitors or (if I remember correc…
Could you please tell me how I can uninstall the default apps, or at least keep them from constantly updating themselves? That half a gig of unwanted apps that just keeps growing itself is pretty annoying.
In settings go to apps, select the app you wish to stop updating and then select disable. All updates to the app will be removed and the app will no longer update.
Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a consistent theme of American companies breaking European law and getting fined for it going back decades. The EU has a different legal system and you don't just get fined it happens after a long process of attempting to correct behaviour and legal proceedings. The arrogance of Americans to believe their legal system applies everywhere and that any attempts to apply a different one constitutes an attempt to…
Show me the evidence that Google was warned about this practice and refused to stop for a long time. I have a really hard time believing that they wouldn't take action in response to warnings if they knew that 40% of yearly profit was at stake. How the hell can the EU entitle itself to 40% of the profit of a company that provides a massive value add to the world? Email, search, maps, video, cloud, office apps and so…
Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
#166This line in the article got to me, "The fine would top the EU’s €2.4 billion antitrust decision against Google just over a year ago." It looks like the EU has created a piggy bank with these regulations on hostage tech corporations. I wonder how much of the large fines is attributed to prosecutors or politicians trying to make a name for themselves. Anyone know how often these record fines hold up on appeal? Edit: W…
> Anyone know how often these record fines hold up on appeal?
IIRC, the "original" record fine imposed on MSFT was ~€500M, and ended up to ~€2B after various further run ins and appeals.
Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
#167Very slightly off topic but I actually think how Android handles default apps is the best of both worlds. It comes with very very good default Google Apps that work well together but it is very easy to switch out whatever you want for an alternative. How iOS handles it is the opposite. For their default apps they either straight out not allow competitors, severely limit what their competitors or (if I remember correc…
Do you have a source for this? I can’t remember Apple disallowing an app because Apple itself provides a similar app. I checked the default apps quickly on my phone, and can find several competitors for all of them. If you are talking about the "apps" Messages.app or Phone.app then I guess you might be right if we define "not providing a public API" the same as "disallowing on the App Store".
You can’t choose what happens is the default on an iPhone. If I want to use Gmail to open mailto links I cannot. If I want to use chrome to open web links by default, I cannot.
On Android you can pick whatever apps you want as the default.
Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
But Apple hasn't been fined in the same way. So apparently if Google had kept Android proprietary, and made their own hardware, they'd be totally OK, even though there'd only be two phone makers left in the world instead of dozens like there is now? I'm sorry but this move is garbage. I am British and I'm so glad the UK is leaving this horrible, success hating farce of a union. Google paid billions to develop Android…
Apple doesn't try to tap markets that doesn't own and to force their own ecosystem into those markets. Google does. That's the fundamental difference. It is okay for them to do whatever they want with their Nexus/Pixel devices, since they fully own them. But forcing some random DTV vendor to install Google Search, Google Social Network, Google Online Shop, Google Payment System, Google This and Google That, just beca…
What's Apple Maps then, if not "trying to tap markets they don't own and to force their own ecosystem into those markets"?
Apple tied together iOS and their own apps for a long time. Although Google provided the map data, the maps app on iOS was Apple's and for the longest time they banned anyone from writing competitors to it (ditto for music apps etc). They now pre-install their own maps app and prevent competing apps from actually becoming the default.
Your second paragraph is just wrong. Nobody is forced to use the Google apps. They're sold as a bundle and you can use Android without buying them. That's what it means for Android to be open source. Google can't "force" third party firms to do anything, especially not TV vendors where apps hardly matter.
Your third paragraph is also wildly wrong - how can it be impossible to start a new video streaming business when just yesterday there was a big discussion here on Hacker News about the stall in growth of Netflix and how their content library is poor because content providers are all setting up their own streaming services? There are lots of video streaming services around today and more are being created all the time. There's even one in France (dailymotion).
Thanks to Google they can even create apps for their services and it's easy for those apps to be installed on new smart TVs. YouTube is hardly the only streaming service, I routinely watch Netflix and watch shows I bought off iTunes.
The entire world doesn't suddenly owe something to Google just because they made something open source.
What a horrible attitude. Google doesn't owe the world open source code either. It's a gift. You might decide you don't like that gift, but the code is Apache licensed. It literally comes with no strings attached. You can do what you want with it.
But the fact that you feel it's impossible to set up something as basic as a video streaming service says a lot about the European mentality, to be blunt. I see America setting up video streaming services left right and center. There's Hulu, HBO Now, Disney's new service, Vimeo, Facebook and Twitter have integrated services. It isn't impossible. What you mean is it's easier to let other people do the work and then demand they pay big fines than to set up a company and compete.
Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
#169Can anyone concisely explain what this fine is for, and also why the same wouldn't apply to Apple for iOS? It seems to be a rehash of the issue that Microsoft faced when it only gave you Internet Explorer on install. But iOS comes with only Safari on install, and forces you to use Apple's various apps - how is this any different?
A better source: > The European Commission has accused Google of abusing its Android market dominance by bundling its search engine and Chrome apps into the operating system. Google has also allegedly blocked phone makers from creating devices that run forked versions of Android. https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/18/17580694/google-android-e... > How is it any different Apple doesn’t have a dominent search engine to pu…
Thanks for this. Anyone who has tried to compile a forked version of AOSP knows that Google makes it extremely hard to do so.
Android being an open source OS is nowhere near as easy to install as a regular linux open source OS.
I've been trying to get my own android / androidTV box working on popular hardware like rPi and other Amlogic, Allwinner, Mali based boards without much success. Even devices manufacturers have troubles with the same (talking about SBCs here).
Android is open source only for name sake. Google's deliberate control over the entire Android ecosystem is undeniable.
Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
A better source: > The European Commission has accused Google of abusing its Android market dominance by bundling its search engine and Chrome apps into the operating system. Google has also allegedly blocked phone makers from creating devices that run forked versions of Android. https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/18/17580694/google-android-e... > How is it any different Apple doesn’t have a dominent search engine to pu…
That first claim is clearly wrong though. Firstly, Android doesn't have a monopoly. Apple does fine in Europe and their devices can be bought everywhere. Secondly, there are device makers that didn't cut a deal with Google, notably the Amazon phones and tablets. They weren't that popular with consumers but that's not Google's fault: it just means consumers highly value the additional services Google provides.
> Android doesn't have a monopoly. Apple does fine in Europe and their devices can be bought everywhere.
As an independen device maker, you wouldn't be able to put iOS on your devices. Android has a huge margin over other viable alternatives.