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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

#401

Post by loourr »

menegattig wrote: post #244

IMHO, antitrust fines/penalties should change from amount of money to some other type of penalty, like temporary market exclusion/block or something, otherwise companies like Google and others can simply use its cash (that's was also made due to the unfair advantage), pay the fine and move on to the next market dominance. They will always have cash to pay, even if the fines are higher and higher. They kind of expect…

I agree with you.

But from the governments perspective that defeats the whole purpose, which is to raise funds.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#402

Post by dlp211 »

mrweasel wrote: post #339
VikingCoder wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, Apple is a brutal dictatorship that doesn't share anything? That's fine. Oh, Google, you're willing to share almost everything with anyone for free, but you want to put terms on that? Hey, here's a giant fine. I just don't understand the logic of this at all.

The logic is that you're not allowed to use your position in one marked to gain influence in another. Google knows that most manufacturer needs their devices to ship with the Play Store, because that's where the apps are and smartphone without apps are useless. But they use the Play Store as leverage, forcing manufactures to also ship Chrome, rather than Opera, Firefox or their own browser and that's the bit that is…

This isnt true though. Samsung ships it's own apps as the defaults on it's devices as one example.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#404

Post by repolfx »

sveme wrote: post #216
repolfx wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, the EU deciding to terminate all cooperation with the UK because of an ideological "all or nothing" approach is a tyrannical and cult-like way to run international relations. However if the alternative is having to deal with the EU Commission then yep, I guess hard brexit is the next best alternative. The reason the EU doesn't have any local mobile companies isn't do to with Android or Google's licensing t…

OT, but what kind of Brexit would you have wanted?

Well it's hard to say that because the EU is the wrong way to organise European cooperation from the start. European cooperation should be done the way it used to be, as many multi-lateral agreements and organisations that are only loosely affiliated or not at all.

But most of the European political elite want to unite the continent under a single government instead. Given that, the best kind of Brexit would be one where the UK is no longer a part of this, and can sign various unlinked bilateral treaties to continue cooperation in the areas where there is agreement, and discontinue in areas where there are disagreement.

This makes perfect sense - agreement on everything is rarely possible, so collaboration on the areas where people do agree is the best you can do. It's also exactly what the UK has proposed repeatedly. However the EU refuses to allow it, exactly because if people were offered that alternative the EU and associated gravy train would cease to exist tomorrow.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#406

Post by vamc19 »

r_singh wrote: post #169
hrktb wrote: post #33

Earlier 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…

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 hav…

I'm not buying your first point. Within a month of OEMs releasing the Kernel sources, you can find builds of AOSP over at XDA, Lineage OS and other forums. And with the project Trebble in P, we have builds within a week. I don't think it is hard or Google is making it hard to compile.

As for your problems installing it on other boards, where are the drivers for them? Your classic desktop installation comes with drivers for almost every laptop/desktop board. Android doesn't because the vendors don't contribute. A snapdragon SoC requires a binary blob from Qualcomm. There is nothing you can do without it. It has nothing to do with AOSP being opensource or Google controlling it (Google controls other aspects, AKA the Play Services).

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#407

Post by rmc »

endorphone wrote: post #286

This is a dangerous ruling that pushes the world further into the potential for trade wars by proxy. Contrary to numerous posts- -no, the law isn't "clear". This is an incredibly nuanced situation, and the notion that Google was just overtly flouting (ed: thx sjcsjc) the law is outright nonsense. Google has a huge litany of bad practices (I personally recently switched my daily driver to an iPhone for that reason), b…

Small fines don't work. Large fines get attention.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#408

Post by stevespang »

Deutsche Bank agrees $7.2bn penalty with US regulators - - Money laundering and mortgage backed securities, 2016 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-38412816

VW Pays $25 Billion for 'Dieselgate', 2018 http://fortune.com/2018/02/06/volkswagen-vw-emissions-scanda...

Europeans are just getting revenge for fines like above

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#409

Post by repolfx »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #351
repolfx wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That latter definition is in fact a reasonable counter-argument to Windows being a monopoly (people did buy Macs), and that's why Microsoft got in trouble for the deals they cut to try and crush Netscape, not for making a more popular OS than Apple did. You can't define a monopoly as "your competitors aren't popular" because otherwise it'd be illegal to invent new product categories, as at the start you'd be the only…

FWIW the definition of a patent is a "time-limited monopoly on working an invention", so all new products that are patented are monopolies by definition. As the sibling comment rightly says, monopolies are acceptable. But, as the EU clearly point out, a greater onus is put on monopolies to avoid abusing their monopoly power.

That would work if patents were enforceable but they really aren't. I can't see a company that (re)invented a new product category where no competitors emerged because of patents.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#410

Post by dtech »

endorphone wrote: post #320
typon wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there car dealers trying to offer a la carte car + entertainment system packages but are being shut down by BMW?

Of course there aren't because BMW absolutely squashed the possibility of that at the outset. But Google, apparently, deserves a $5B fine because they made a mistake of powering AOSP phones, the Amazon products, countless variations in China, set top boxes, etc. It is incredible seeing Google being seriously attacked on here for have an open source path as well. I feel like this is some sort of alternative universe.

> But Google, apparently, deserves a $5B fine because they made a mistake of powering AOSP phones

This is incredibly (deliberately?) misrepresentative. They are being punished for having a monopoly and (ab)using that. If Apple/iPhone had an 80% market share in EU the commission would be gunning for them instead, e.g. because of their closed ecosystem preventing competition.

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