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

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

#21

Post by truth_seeker »

How far fine will help ? who will get benefitted ? how many people really understand ANTITRUST in its entire scope ?

IMHO, The market dominance of features provided by big tech companies like google and many other companies which provides something as a service must be consciously evaluated whenever product (and its new releases with new features) hits the market.

Big tech companies like google have too much monopoly. Each country deserve their own local vendors who are responsible for creation and operation of platform. Restricting the scope of some technology platform as service especially to a particular nation or even states can help build local jobs, also keeping the sentiments for that region.

On international level if someone wants to succeed they must be allowed but should be given limited access in each country/state by the government from very start, so that they don't overpower the local market.

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

#22

Post by hrktb »

varispeed wrote: post #13
bjohnson225 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

€100M for not allowing the EnelX app (electric car charging infrastructure in Italy) with Android Auto is a significant fine. Even if €100M on its own is not much to Google, it is still an expensive precedent for similar cases in the future.

In Italy, the judgements are not a source of law, so this ruling does not mean that a similar situation would have the same outcome in the future.

Doesn’t it at least constitue a data point for future cases, where Google won’t just be able to say “we just don’t hinder competitors, you must be mistaken” and we also get vetted documents on their inner workings and processes that will make the discovery process faster on other cases.

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

#23

Post by baybal2 »

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.

People, it's good point actually.

In a recent article on a new lobbying group trying to onshore chip production https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27121586 a lot of people pointed out it's this weakness incentivising lobbying.

In other words US establishment invites regulatory capture through expectation of lobbying action creating even bigger opportunities to draw a dire picture, and demand more state intervention favourable to the industry.

More lobbying & pushback > industry situation worsens > opportunity to draw a dire situation > favourable intervention & more handouts > repeat

The poorer they do, they bigger are the handouts.

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

#24

Post by rightbyte »

hulitu wrote: post #15
idkwhoiam wrote: post #8

What a steaming pile of digested waste material. Have they ever thought about fixing their app? There are plenty of Android Auto apps on the store.

It's half true, there are plenty of android auto apps on the store. The majority of them are music playing apps. Navigation apps are not allowed by google. I have 2 cars with android auto and android auto is useless for me because i cannot mirror the phone screen.

Wait what? Only Google Maps is allowed? That is absurd.

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

#25

Post by oblio »

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…

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.

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

#26

Post by dalbasal »

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 technical infractions buried in their take-it-or-leave-it contracts with "partners.^"

Google get a fine. They deny culpability. They pay a fine and move on. Whether it's 100m or 2bn doesn't really matter. Google are demonstrably willing to pay far more (eg acquisition, browser kickbacks, etc.) to maintain a monopolistic position. Besides minor tweaks, there's no reason for them to change.

What's the point? Antitrust can't be useful as a violation-fine paradigm. These cases/fines don't affect the monopoly or free the market in any useful sense.

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.

There is no point to antitrust if its totally reactive, handing out fines for moving violations. The point of antitrust is trust-busting, to affect market structure. The point if to have a competitive market.

All the 1990s stuff is playing out. Just like the MSFT case, we see that operating systems, browsers (now app stores) are monopoly prone and that it's a big deal. On the other side, the 90s "portal" concept is fully realized now. In the digital economy, controlling the windows of consumption is everything. None of the costs, all of the profit... literally all in a lot of cases.

^Newspapers didn't have the advantage search partners had in their monopoly claim, because Google doesn't have agreements with them. No contract, no abusive clauses. The take it or leave it offer is "give us your content for free, or go away." Formally, Google isn't even doing business with them.

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

#27

Post by oblio »

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.

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

#29

Post by user-the-name »

oblio wrote: post #25
bsdubernerd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

It is a lot more than "theatre". The first line of defence is the sandboxing built into the OS. The second line is a lot of automated analysis of the binaries that are uploaded. The human review is the third line, but that is much less about security.

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

#30

Post by threeseed »

oblio wrote: post #25
bsdubernerd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

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