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Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

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Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#361

Post by genewitch »

scarface74 wrote: post #245
Auracle wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of people that transfer videos/photos off of their phone to a computer by any means is absolutely minuscule.

So you think the people shooting 4K video and taking RAW pictures are posting them to Instagram? The lowest common denominator is the same reason that Bluetooth outside of the Apple ecosystem is such a shit show. Android has supported its own proprietary video over micro USB for ages before USB C became more ubiquitous. What are the chances that Android manufactures won’t cheap out and not ship with cables that can s…

people who earn on twitch, instagram, etc use dslr or mirrorless cameras, unless the video requires a phone in hand.

I know the "standard setup" shown in media, and advertisements, etc shows a ring light with a cellphone using the front facing camera as the recording device, that's just not technologically feasible.

And for the record, i move 4k and/or 108MP images from my phones via wifi or cellular, using synology diskstation autosync or syncthing, respectively. I've used syncthing to upload unedited 4k30p drone footage with no issues, and when i get home, it will sync to hard disks in addition.

Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#362

Post by kernal »

Hamcha wrote: post #43
nottorp wrote: post #38

> Android has created more choice for everyone, not less Did it? I can choose between an iOS phone and an Android phone. I may be able to choose from different manufacturers on the Android side, but on the software side there are just two options.

Remember when Google refused to put Youtube on Windows Phone and when Microsoft made their own client, Google forced them to take it off their own store? Truly advocating for more choice. (Press at the time: https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/16/windows_phone_youtube... )

Yes, I do remember. You, however, seem to have conveniently left out the fact that they illegally reverse engineered the protocol and filtered ads. Microsoft got what was coming to them.

Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#363

Post by ephbit »

crazygringo wrote: post #336
babelfish wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, while the fines might make operating in the EU unprofitable, they could just...follow EU regulations...and remain profitable, albeit at a likely lower margin

To be fair, it's often very unclear how regulations relating to markets apply. Which is why lawsuits around them often get reversed on appeal, re-reversed on another appeal, and so on. It's often very open to interpretation what constitutes a market, what constitutes bundling, what constitutes dominance, what constitutes monopoly, what even constitutes a product. There's neither such a thing as clear-cut definitions,…

> What's the difference between Sony requiring you to buy headphones together with the tape player, or Android requiring Google to be the default search?

Sony and headphones together with tape player ... there's a synergy there, when they can sell them together, it's a small one though. (Selling two pieces of hardware together generates more turnover with one transaction.)

With Android requiring Google to be the default search ... in comparison to the headphones there's a huge synergy here, I'd say. Collecting data (via non search software on the Android phone) and adding to it more data from search, makes all data more valuable in a very non-linear way. With the tape player I'd say it's more linear.

So for me, the search data is a quite obvious non-neutrality issue.

Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#364

Post by Dylan16807 »

scarface74 wrote: post #352
ThatPlayer wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well like you say, it is to prevent ewaste. And even the cheapest power only USB cables with the cheapest USB power supply provides "standard" 5V power. If your device doesn't accept that, isn't that a problem with your Macbook and not the cable?

How far do you think a 5W USB C cable will get charging a 16 inch laptop? The USB standard is fine until the unsuspecting consumer who left the USB C cord to his MacBook Pro 16 goes to a random drug store to pick up a standard “USB C” cable and wonders why their laptop is still going dead after a few hours of heavy use not knowing the cord is incapable of delivering 100W of power. Or the hypothetical iPhone 16 user g…

5 watt cables do not exist.

Basic cables support 60.

It's unfortunate when cables don't say their Gbps, but that's a different issue.

Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#365

Post by DandyDev »

ranman wrote: post #303
babelfish wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, while the fines might make operating in the EU unprofitable, they could just...follow EU regulations...and remain profitable, albeit at a likely lower margin

EU regulations + individual country restrictions are written in a way that's allergic to running a profitable business (with a few notable exceptions).

That seems like hyperbole to me. Did you do concrete research/calculations to prove that for example Google in this case would not be able to turn a profit in the EU when they'd comply to regulations?

Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#366

Post by genewitch »

rsanheim wrote: post #302
moffkalast wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android should damn well ship with multiple app stores and multiple browsers, not just the GoogleApprovedTM app store where they ban anyone that looks at them wrong or thinks about blocking ads for more than 2 miliseconds. The exclusive app stores are both iOS and Android's greatest strengths and failings at the same time. Apple is arguably the far worse offender there too. If there was an alternative app store on iO…

> If there was an alternative app store on iOS everyone would jump ship immediately citation needed. if there was an alternative app store, 90% of apple users wouldn't even be aware of it, the other 8% would hear about it and never use it, and maybe, _maybe_ 2% would install it.

there... are, though, for example, cydia.

I've never installed the AOSP or the oneplus specific "android" versions so i have no frame of reference, but it takes about 25 seconds to get cydia to come up on the ipad i use it on, with no other weirdness needed on the ipad itself.

Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#367

Post by MrStonedOne »

endisneigh wrote: post #155
layer8 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, not require that Chrome be preinstalled as the default browser on Android devices, and not require that a bundle of Google apps be preinstalled if any of them is preinstalled.

Is this not already possible with things like LineageOS?

No post body was provided.

Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#368

Post by stingraycharles »

StingyJelly wrote: post #226
dahfizz wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, yes. But I am confident the EU would find other ways to extract fines from Google in that case.

As a counterexample there's Apple with not insignificant market share in Europe - pushing icloud, not supporting third party operating sysems or even sideloading, still keeping proprietary connector despite everyone else using usb-c, etc.

For sure my recently bought iPad and Apple Watch use USB-C, so I think that part is not true. Arguably due to EU legislation.

Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#369

Post by crazygringo »

ephbit wrote: post #363
crazygringo wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it's often very unclear how regulations relating to markets apply. Which is why lawsuits around them often get reversed on appeal, re-reversed on another appeal, and so on. It's often very open to interpretation what constitutes a market, what constitutes bundling, what constitutes dominance, what constitutes monopoly, what even constitutes a product. There's neither such a thing as clear-cut definitions,…

> What's the difference between Sony requiring you to buy headphones together with the tape player, or Android requiring Google to be the default search? Sony and headphones together with tape player ... there's a synergy there, when they can sell them together, it's a small one though. (Selling two pieces of hardware together generates more turnover with one transaction.) With Android requiring Google to be the defa…

I just meant it as a rhetorical question... just to point out that what is obvious for one person, the opposite is obvious for another. And so just "following regulations" doesn't always necessarily have any kind of objective way to do it -- as evidenced by courts often disagreeing with each other in specific situations.

Re: Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B

#370

Post by genewitch »

perlgeek wrote: post #180
robomartin wrote: post #164

Does the money in these cases go to government? Not sure how it is in the EU. This is one of the aspects of government-based fines I dislike. The money should go to the people, the victims, not government. They go after a company that may have damaged consumers and then proceed to grab the fine instead of giving it to the people who were the actual victims of the transgression.

It's simply not practical to determine with certainty who owned an Android phone during the time that Google violated the antitrust laws, and divide the payout among them.

I get class action checks from a single online grocery order i made in 2010. I'm getting a class action check for a used vehicle i bought in my state where my state isn't involved in the class, but the vehicle was originally sold in a class state.

i'm pretty sure the panopticon that is google can determine who had an android phone, ever.

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