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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

#271

Post by riffraff »

anoncake wrote: post #149
riffraff wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is because they think the courts are politicized, not because the judiciary takes input from the government. In fact there has been a constant conflict between judges and government for the last 30 years.

Doesn't that mean the judiciary is independent, but biased?

It's hard to say, certainly some investigations have appeared political, but in US terms there is distrust against "public attorneys" rather than against judges (and Italy permits one to change career between the two).

But what I meant to say is that one political side have complained about judges for 30 years, which has impacted the public opinion.

See the effects Trump has had on institutional trust in the US, and make it last 5 mandates.

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

#272

Post by speedgoose »

spoonjim wrote: post #246
speedgoose wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for the government can be more meaningful than selling to companies available human brain time for example. Also, working remotely is not for everyone or possible in every company.

I can understand government work being meaningful if you’re doing something that can’t be done in the private sector like setting policy, regulatory compliance, working on health or climate change etc, but why would it be meaningful to help the French government build a shitty Google clone, to the tune of a 2/3 pay cut?

It could be so many reasons. Perhaps to actually build a search engine. I doubt anyone is building Google Search from scratch anymore at Google.

And also it's not like you work for the French government, the French government is funding your company to support innovation. Most governments do that, by giving money or allowing tax optimization.

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

#273

Post by toyg »

gentleman11 wrote: post #171
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…

Not sure why nobody else is asking this, but what is the evidence? Did an investigation reveal that this actually was the reason for the App Store rejection?

This was an antitrust ruling, so chances are that the process was something like:

- app developer (here, the giant state-backed energy company ENEL) complains to antitrust authority about getting denied access to store

- authority asks Google to justify itself

- Google makes a very weak argument, refuses to disclose the internal decision-making process that resulted in blocking access

- authority goes “oh really?”, proceeds to slap Google with a fine

Now Google can decide whether they want to take this to court (which, being Italy, will probably take 5 to 10 years); pay the fine and allow ENEL in; or just ignore the ruling and dare the state to slap them harder (which again, would probably mean a good 5+ years will pass before sanctions are actually enacted, but might result in higher fines).

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

#274

Post by toyg »

anoncake wrote: post #149
riffraff wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is because they think the courts are politicized, not because the judiciary takes input from the government. In fact there has been a constant conflict between judges and government for the last 30 years.

Doesn't that mean the judiciary is independent, but biased?

Kinda. The judicial branch is rigorously separated from the other two, but it self-organises in a way that often replicates the ideological groups emerging in regular politics (they have their own little parliament, basically). When the postwar political equilibrium crumbled under the weight of its own corruption and Berlusconi got in power, effectively altering the ideological landscape, the judiciary “class” did not immediately follow, since most of them saw the guy as a dodgy felon (which was technically correct); and things have been a bit hairy ever since.

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

#275

Post by dalbasal »

jsmith45 wrote: post #232
dalbasal wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK if it's "past a point," but in some cases maybe. I'm torn on that though. EG, what would it actually mean if FB or twitter became "regulated like utilities?" Interoperability? Portability? IMO, these are pretty finicky problems for a regulator. I think it would likely look like the mandated personal data dumps we have today. Some clunky feature that few use, and don't change the structure of the market. Useful tr…

> Court-like proceedings to confirm bans The EU's initial proposed version of the "Digital Services Act", requires that when a service takes down information that they think is "illegal" or incompatible with the terms of service, They are required to provide the "facts and circumstances" used to arrive at that decision, as well as reference to the specific term of service they think is violated, and why they feel the…

Hmm. I didn't know that.

I suppose we'll see how it works out, assuming it does become law. There is devil in the generalities here, but plenty of devil in the detail too.

Detail-wise.... Compliance, currently, is the art of ticking boxes while not changing anything fundamental. Too often, politicians and advocates have their eyes on the spirit of (proposed) laws while corporations and their advocates put their eye on how "compliance" will actually work procedurally. The latter approach is more effective.

That doesn't mean no goals are ever achieved, but it does dampen a lot. EU transparency laws, right to be forgotten and such are good examples. They might establish moral rights, but they don't affect really achieve big practical goals.

Generality-wise... I think the problem for (eg) free expression is the platform oligopoly itself, not their corporate policies. That's not my main concern here though. My main concern is: These laws are only necessary because monopoly. The danger is that the laws entrench monopoly, by applying them unnecessarily to smaller platforms.

That said, we'll see when/if it happens. Thanks for the info.

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

#276

Post by dalbasal »

thegrimmest wrote: post #222
dalbasal wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google will continue to make money as it does now, through adwords as a "search partner." This is also how other SEs make money. The biggest antitrust case Google has lost so far has related directly to this. Would they make less money? Yes, probably. It's hard to say how much, but it would still likely be enough to run Google. I think it's easier to understand the paradigm with Twitter or FB, since they're simpler.…

> it would still likely be enough to run Google. [emphasis mine] Is this arbitrary guess really worth risking the whole farm?

The farm is at risk at all time.

That said, I think the risks are way smaller than previous era's trustbusting. I like FB as an example, as I said. I'm pretty confident that FB would be pretty much the same on far less revenue because they were pretty much the same on less revenue in recent years.

Comparable social media services run of far less revenue (scaled whichever way you like). You can also look at their accounts, which reveal a lot. The simplest clue is profit margins.

If we're wrong... one social media service declines and another takes its place. Personally, I see very little risk. The actual risk, IMO, is not really about keeping these services viable. There no "shit! I broke auto-manufacturing and now we don't have cars" risk.

It's about share price. Smallish declines in revenue can mean big declines in profit. Any decline in revenue can lead to a collapse of share prices, regardless of profit. The big techs are a big part of the S&P, and high profile. Quite a lot of the S&P's value relates directly to monopoly, so antitrust (IMO) directly conflicts with equity values... and things could get "macroeconomic" from there.

All that said, I'm not advocating anything intentionally destructive. Google is, I suspect, expecting to be broken up eventually. I think that was part of the Alphabet restructuring logic.

The primary objection that comes to my mind, in the vein of your comment,is a hayek-esque information argument. A Hayekian logic though, is totally incompatible with paragraph 5 above though, and I'm quite confident about that... so I don't know where it fits in.

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

#277

Post by Chymor »

908B64B197 wrote: post #236
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…

I'm on Google's side here. I want Android Auto to know what type of plug I have and Google Maps to just show me all compatible chargers. And possibly handle payments. Like what Tesla has been doing for years [0]. Now there's some government developed app to duplicate that functionality but only for their special snowflake network and only in their jurisdiction. Just crossed the border from France to Italy? Install th…

That’s not really what it’s about. It’s about if they can do that and throw out competing apps doing the same thing. Or if you will have the ability to choose an other app if you don’t like google.

Of cause integration and ease of use become harder if there’s multiple networks and apps, but that’s separate from the question if they should be allowed by google.

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

#278

Post by buran77 »

reader_mode wrote: post #262
buran77 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about laws? Apple's rules are no different from HN's rules. And for that matter, your house rules. They're arbitrary decisions to the liking of the respective party. They just have to not be against the law themselves. If they are problematic the solution isn't to generically "ban rules" (saying it out loud already hints at the "value" of this proposition) but to change the law to prohibit certain r…

This is a super naive analogy - HN doesn't serve close to 50% of the US market, nor is it a platform through which billions of dollars transact. If it did very different rules apply, rightfully so, scale matters, market position matters - from Apple profit margins it's obvious they are abusing monopolistic position.

It's only naive because you chose the naive interpretation, based on sentiment and you not understanding the massive difference between laws and a company's rules. Until you understand what they are, and who decides if rules are against the law or not, mentioning "profit", "scale", "market position", and "different rules apply" doesn't get you closer to the point.

I'll take it down a couple of notches to make it easier: HN could serve every user under the Sun and still be entitled to have a (perfectly legal) rule that says "Don't solicit upvotes". No amount of "oh but at their scale" will change that.

Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. or any company actually do not write laws (they lobby and bribe for them but that's a different can of worms). They just write their own rules for their own products and services. Those rules have to be within the law and even if common sense and current evidence may say they break the law, it's up to a judge in an antitrust lawsuit to decide.

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

#279

Post by buran77 »

andrepd wrote: post #267
buran77 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about laws? Apple's rules are no different from HN's rules. And for that matter, your house rules. They're arbitrary decisions to the liking of the respective party. They just have to not be against the law themselves. If they are problematic the solution isn't to generically "ban rules" (saying it out loud already hints at the "value" of this proposition) but to change the law to prohibit certain r…

Yes, but the point is that Apple doesn't allow you to not accept their house rules and install apps some other way on """your""" device.

Indeed they don't. And yet they're still not laws which is great for us because those rules or practices can be found illegal.

As I tried to explain above, HN is free to have a rule which says "Don't solicit upvotes" but they can't have a rule "Don't talk to women". The simple answer is because no matter what that rule says, tit's not a law, it's just a rule which can be applied only until a judge decides it's against the law.

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

#280

Post by emn13 »

Karunamon wrote: post #237
emn13 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that you don't really get to pick to pay the price or not because of their monopoly position. At best you get to take your marbles and refuse to play entirely; which isn't exactly a reasonable long term strategy. There should be competition between app stores.

This subthread is about purchasing subscriptions to apps. There are multiple apps serving the same niche, so I'm not sure what your point is here.

I misunderstood your criticism; so while I do believe such subscriptions are scams in the sense that they prey on victims via deception and the presence of such actors undermines trust in the marketplace thus undermining fluid trade, thus such scams should be prevented - that's really kind of neither here nor their, because that's at best a laudable goal, not some kind of requirement for Apple as app-store manager.
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