Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

europa.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 975 posts

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

#421

Post by neil_s »

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…

But Apple does pre-install iTunes/Apple Music, and make money when users use the default music app rather than downloading alternatives. You gotta pay for the OS somehow, but people aren't willing to pay for OSes. So instead, Apple makes money through the bundled hardware (to use iOS, you must buy an iPhone) and Google through the bundled software (if you want to use some Google apps like the Play Store, you must also use other Google apps like Chrome and Search).

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

#422

Post by frockington »

rusk wrote: post #414
frockington wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hate to live in such a restrictive area but that is probably more a cultural difference than anything. I'd rather have competition and innovation than security and stability. In my opinion it is the main distinguishing factor between the USA and Europe

No shortage of competition and innovation here my friend. We're having this very discussion atop the world wide web which came from CERN. There's no reason why I should have to sacrifice my privacy so that a few oligarchs can add a few more zeros to their bank accounts.

All I can think of is Nokia and possibly Vodafone if those count as technology. What other big tech companies are there? Not trying to be rude, just generally curious as I don't know much about the European technology scene

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

#423

Post by guy98238710 »

andrepd wrote: post #368
renchap wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the initial fine. Now they have 90 days to comply, otherwise they will get penalties (up to 5% worldwide turnover of Alphabet) until they do. From the link: > Google must now bring the conduct effectively to an end within 90 days or face penalty payments of up to 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover of Alphabet, Google's parent company.

Is it me, or 5% isn't that much?

It's 5% of turnover, not profit. It is a lot of money for the shareholders.

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

#424

Post by close04 »

SparklingCotton wrote: post #296
close04 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't my point. I'm not talking about assigning blame on individuals in a company but to at least use the same principles when punishing companies as we do with individuals. A private individual is expected to return all illegal gains, pay additional fines, and possibly do prison. But a company might be expected to pay fines that are actually a fraction of the profits made abusing the law. This means paying the…

Since the EU wants Google to stop within 90 days, I assume they can give them a fresh €4.5bn fine if they refuse. At least that's something.

That's definitely an incentive to stop once you were caught. But not really an incentive to not even do it in the first place.

Easier to say sorry than to ask permission, right?

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

#425

Post by raarts »

This is part of the power/money struggle between huge corporations and governments.

Big corporations often succeed in avoiding taxes [1][2], and regularly pit states or countries against each other to get the highest tax benefit [3]. Governments really don't like that, but often there's not a lot they can do.

Except for banding up in something like the EU, and using that combined power to strike back.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-02/google-s-...

[2] https://itep.org/amazon-inc-paid-zero-in-federal-taxes-in-20...

[3] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/09/07/could-your-st...

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

#426

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #366
vivan wrote: post #2

Can 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?

Relevant statement and partial answer to your question by DuckDuckGo: https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1019562507294461953

Man, some of these could be Corp-explained away by some savvy PR person but why the heck would you buy a URL that is like your competitor and point it to you, other than to deliberately stifle competition? I would like to hear the response from Google on that one.

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

#427

Post by close04 »

frockington wrote: post #307
detaro wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what data do you base your judgement that GDPR means the EU "hands out fines like candy"?

The article this post links to would point to the trigger happy fine nature of the EU when it comes to American technology

On the bright side many decisions the EU takes also benefit the rest of the world by virtue of being a big enough market.

Of course you can expect any government to be a little easier on local businesses but as far as correctness goes the EU has always done a pretty good job.

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

#428

Post by bjpbakker »

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.

> Google being seriously attacked on here for have an open source path as well

It's not because Google has open sourced Android (which they _had_ to because of the GPL used by Linux). The fine is for protecting their own marker by blocking others from using that open source software.

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

#429

Post by wongarsu »

endorphone wrote: post #305
Dayshine wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's read the law: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... >Article 102 >Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the internal market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market in so far as it may affect trade between Member States. >Such abuse may, in particular, consist in: >b) limiting production, markets or techni…

How is that not clearly breaching d? They're a part of the same suite of apps that provide the "Android experience" (Google experience, whatever -- the thing that most consumers think of when they consider Android). They manifestly have a profound connection with each other. And let's be clear here lest there be any confusion -- zero customers want a vendor to do anything different, and the only reason some vendors w…

>They're a part of the same suite of apps that provide the "Android experience"

The thing they were fined for was

>[Google] has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google's app store (the Play Store);

How is the Play Store related to the Google Seach app or to Chrome? One is an app store, one is a seach bar and one is a browser. They have nothing in common and don't interact in any meaningful way (except perhaps the interaction between the Google Seach app and Chrome, but that relation isn't part of the ruling).

This is clearly Google using the dominance of the Play store to push other, completely unrelated apps.

>zero customers want a vendor to do anything different

The first thing I do with a new phone is to try to get rid of that google search bar on the home screen (I open a browser to seach the web ...), I don't use mobile chrome, and I prefer rooted CyanogenMod / LineageOS over stock Android. So I am clearly impacted by all three offenses Google was fined for. I suspect I am not the only one.

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

#430

Post by ghosterrific »

The only monopolies are the ones created by gov't.

Another shakedown of Google cuz "market abuse". What the fuck is market abuse?

They offered a superior product than their competitors. And we bought it.

Politicians wanting their 5B cut.

Shakedown

Post reply on HN