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Android developer verification: Early access starts

android-developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts

#651

Post by oblio »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #650

I had been Android fan from the start. When first Android phones went out I was astonished by the amount of possibilities. There were linux phones available, my colleagues used to set up ssh servers and more. Samsung had Baidu at that time which at least to me appeared more closed than Android. Things have been going bad since then. Closing of root access, closing of software, youtube not working in split screen etc.…

> Google stop being evil

You think this is evil? :-)))

Watch what happens as they can't grow by 10% per year and their share price tanks in 5-10 years.

Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts

#652

Post by AnthonyMouse »

amne wrote: post #644
chii wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the ruling is correct. You can't have it both ways, if you invite competition you're not allowed to be anti-competitive That's just stupid, because being anti-competitive is an emergent outcome, rather than anything specific. Apple is definitely anti-competitive, but they exploited such a ruling so that they can skirt it. Owning a platform that no other entrants are allowed is anti-competitive - whether you're…

That's like Karcher opening a megamall to sell all their offering, vacuums, pressure washers, floor washers, you name it .. and then you, Bosch, complaining you can't sell your vacuum in Karcher's megamall where all the people go. What are you even saying? Whereas google was letting Bosch sell vacuums in their megamall, but only if it uses Google dust filters and people buy only Google made dust filters and Bosch isn…

It's like a company buying all the land within a 100 mile radius and then nominally "selling" plots to people but with terms of service attached that restrict what you can do with the land you bought and that allow the company to change the terms at any time. And then, after people have moved in, most of them having not even read the terms or realized it wasn't an ordinary sale, they start enforcing the terms against competitors. Which most people don't notice because they aren't competitors, and because the terms also prohibited anyone in the city from telling people what's going on[1]. Then people eventually notice and start to ask whether terms locking out competitors like that are an antitrust violation, and someone says that they're not because the people there agreed to them.

[1] https://som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2022-01/DTH-Apple-n...

But how is an agreement prohibiting people from patronizing competitors not an antitrust violation? It's not a matter of who agreed to it, it's matter of what they're requiring you to agree to.

Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts

#654

Post by monegator »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #570
curtisnewton wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then i guess you can't publish apps? I want to distribute apps (someone might also want to simply sell them), not publish them I don't need a publisher, internet is a publishing media already > you don't have the right to publish to the android platform then let me install an alternative OS on the HW i legally bought and own or pay me back. > the harms caused by malware and malicious actors life is full of people d…

> life is full of people doing harms and malicious actors, but we don't let Google or any other company gatekeep our lives Yeah, you're certainly not speaking for malware victims here. android is not your life, so google gatekeeping android (actually only google approved builds) is not gatekeeping your life. You certainly should be able to load an alternative OS. isn't that what lineage and other android distribution…

Not when google lobbies your government and banks to require "play integrity" in order to use government apps and bank apps

Not device integrity (locked bootloader, signed image, which can be done with alternative OS) but "play integrity" so approved by google. In other words, you can't run android without Google's services, google's builtin ads.

And the alternative is iOS.

Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts

#655

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Spivak wrote: post #619
Workaccount2 wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really its probably the dumbass judge that told Google "The apple app store isn't anti-competitive because they don't allow any competitors on their platform" when google asked why the play store was ruled a monopoly and the app store wasn't. I cannot think of a more detached and idiotic ruling than that.

But the ruling is correct. You can't have it both ways, if you invite competition you're not allowed to be anti-competitive. You can be Nintendo, offer a single store, only allow first party hardware, and exercise total control over your product. Then your anticompetitive behavior can only be evaluated externally. But if you open yourself up to internal competition with other phone vendors, other stores, and then you…

> You can be Nintendo, offer a single store, only allow first party hardware, and exercise total control over your product.

How is this not even more anti-competitive?

It's fine to be mad at Google for being duplicitous, but treachery is in the nature of false advertising or breach of contract. Antitrust is something else.

"You can monopolize the market as long as you commit to it from the start" seems like the text of the law a supervillain would be trying pass in order to destroy the world.

Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts

#656

Post by reorder9695 »

Groxx wrote: post #144
klabb3 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > intercepts the victim's notifications > And who controls these notifications and forces application developers to use a specific service? Am I alone in being alarmed by this? Are they admitting that their app sandboxing is so weak that a malicious app can exfil data from other unaffiliated apps? And they must instead rely on centralized control to disable those apps after the crime? So.. what’s the point of the s…

yes, they're admitting that their APIs are powerful enough to build accessibility tools (which often must read notifications) and many other useful things (e.g. Pushbullet) that are not possible on iOS. powerful stuff has room for abuse. I didn't really think there's much of a way to make that not the case. it's especially true for anything that you grant accessibility-level access to, and "you cannot build accessibi…

I mean the solution really is a comprehensive permissions system, for an accessibility system that needs to read notifications you should be able to deny it network permissions and whitelist which app's notifications it's allowed to read

Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts

#657

Post by chii »

amne wrote: post #644
chii wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the ruling is correct. You can't have it both ways, if you invite competition you're not allowed to be anti-competitive That's just stupid, because being anti-competitive is an emergent outcome, rather than anything specific. Apple is definitely anti-competitive, but they exploited such a ruling so that they can skirt it. Owning a platform that no other entrants are allowed is anti-competitive - whether you're…

That's like Karcher opening a megamall to sell all their offering, vacuums, pressure washers, floor washers, you name it .. and then you, Bosch, complaining you can't sell your vacuum in Karcher's megamall where all the people go. What are you even saying? Whereas google was letting Bosch sell vacuums in their megamall, but only if it uses Google dust filters and people buy only Google made dust filters and Bosch isn…

> Karcher opening a megamall to sell all their offering

And their mall is monopolistic if it is only for Karcher products. However, because a competitor can easily open a mall next door, it means this Karcher mall is small, and so the enforcers should leave it be. Until the day Karcher buys up all the mall space, in which case, they (regulators) start purging their mall monopoly.

The threat of being purged because you've acquired a large enough monopoly should _always_ be there. It's part of doing business in a fair environment.

Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts

#658

Post by wiz21c »

ferguess_k wrote: post #531
rom1v wrote: post #342

I want to be able to install apps from alternative app stores like F-Droid and receive automatic updates, without requiring Google's authorization for app publication. Manually installing an app via adb must, of course, be permitted. But that is not sufficient. > Keeping users safe on Android is our top priority. Google's mandatory verification is not about security, but about control (they want to forbid apps like R…

Yes, it's all about control. Control the platform. Control the access to the platform, and the world is your oyster. And the political and legislation system are their friends. It is the establishment. The only way to fight is to indoctrinate the next generation, at home, and in school, to use FOSS. People tend to stick to whatever they used in childhood. We the software engineers should volunteer in giving speeches…

I agree with you. But you do realize that it's been like that since about 20 years now. It started because of Microsoft (proprietary software), then Google (propriteary platform), now ChatGPT (proprietary knowledge).

And I tried to tell my kids. And it failed mostly.

But in the long run (a decade), what is exceptional and proprietary will become common FOSS. And everybody will benefit.

Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts

#659

Post by iggldiggl »

v3xro wrote: post #357

What prohibits Google from offering a way to register your long-term app signing key without identity verification, publishing apps that are still verified by their automated tooling and then opting in to the usual denylisting/app store banning methods if those apps are malicious? This identity verification requirement is basically just an easy way for illiberal governments to find ways to crack down on apps they do…

Banning all apps signed by the same key is already possible. Requiring signing keys to be anonymously registered with Google would add some friction to simply rotating your signing keys when you get caught doing something naughty (depending on how much Google account creation and key registration can be automated against Google’s anti-bot protection, though), but definitely not as much as full identity verification and payment of 25 USD (even if that isn't foolproof, either, and has the annoying side effect of unfortunately slowing down small-scale freeware developers at the same time, too).

Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts

#660

Post by iggldiggl »

croemer wrote: post #408

Actual title is "Android developer verification: Early access starts now as we continue to build with your feedback" Two key announcements: > we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn't verified. > We are using your input to shape a dedicated account type for students and hobbyists. This will allow you to distribute your creations to a limite…

The student/hobbyist account type will most likely literally only be useful for that strict purpose, i.e. very small-scale distribution to a known quantity of people.

I think it was mentioned somewhere else that that account type would require manually authorising each individual installation, so it'd still be useless for small freeware developers, who are only in it for the fun, too, but want to give away their software to everybody who might find it useful.

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