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Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

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Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#71

Post by bryanrasmussen »

mrtksn wrote: post #30
heavyset_go wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has 60% of the mobile market in the US[1], and more than double the revenue from their dominant stake in the mobile app distribution market than Google[2], both off which make up over 99% of that market. Also, our layman definitions of monopoly do not matter when it comes to antitrust laws[3]: > Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthan…

As we are not in a court in here, only the laymen opinion is relevant as it is impossible to make a strict legal discussion without having a strict legal process. I would say, Apple is very popular in the US but I don't see how it can be a monopoly when you can just order another device from Amazon and that device being just good or maybe better. In many other rich countries, people are choosing Samsung, Americans ca…

ok the discussion is about if Apple is a monopoly by the legal definition, if we followed your prescription it would mean we would be unable to have this discussion.

One of the most important discussions in tech has to do with what companies are monopolies, in essence you are saying Hacker News cannot have this important discussion!

I can't really comment more on this idea as I feel I would be compelled to violate HN guidelines.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#72

Post by coolandsmartrr »

Why is the plaintiff, California Crane School, suing Apple and Google?

As far as I see, the plaintiff is not in the tech business, as they're a school that teaches how to operate cranes[1]

[1] https://www.californiacraneschool.com/

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#73

Post by mrtksn »

josefx wrote: post #59
mrtksn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As we are not in a court in here, only the laymen opinion is relevant as it is impossible to make a strict legal discussion without having a strict legal process. I would say, Apple is very popular in the US but I don't see how it can be a monopoly when you can just order another device from Amazon and that device being just good or maybe better. In many other rich countries, people are choosing Samsung, Americans ca…

> As we are not in a court in here, only the laymen opinion is relevant as it is impossible to make a strict legal discussion without having a strict legal process. I would love to make this argument the next time vaccines are mentioned. Remember vaccines cause autism and turn the frogs gay. Any attempt to correct this using medical jargon or methods is literally out of scope for the average hacker news commenter and…

For legal process we need to have Apple, Google and others provide us with their documents and arguments - which is not happening. We can't even have well educated guess as these things need cooperating parties or enforcement power to obtain.

On the other hand, when discussing vaccines and viruses there are numerous research in the open that we can use to build on. Any use of correct medical jargon or methods is fine as it is not a protected information. Of course you can misunderstand it but you can also understand it properly since the research and data is in the open.

Discussing what's just based on information and observations we have is like discussing vaccines and viruses based on the research and observations we have access to.

Discussing the legal process is like discussing the FDA application of a drug. It can happen only if you are part of the process or after it comes to a conclusion and information used in the ruling is made public.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#74

Post by wodenokoto »

Lio wrote: post #24
dpark wrote: post #17

”The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the comp…

#5 is the key point to my mind. For example, you can’t just add new search engines to iOS Safari with just a URL. There are a few alternatives to Google but there’s no easy way for a new entrant to get in there. EDIT: Interesting. I’m picking up downvotes for this, is there some way to achieve this (other than jailbreaking) I’ve missed?

I did a search for it, and apparently the only way to add other search engines are through extensions. I haven't tested it though.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#75

Post by bni »

onion2k wrote: post #57
dpark wrote: post #17

”The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the comp…

The alternative option seems to be that Apple is for some reason required to use their position to enter the search market. Why is that the alternative? No one is saying Apple have to provide their own search engine; people are suggesting Mac products should give the user a clear choice. A much more obvious alternative is that Apple (or any OS provider for that matter) shouldn't be able to sell the default search eng…

It is easy to change, it a dropdown in Safari settings, very easy to find.

I agree though that Google pays Apple billions to be the default stinks. Even though in this case Apple greed aligns perfectly with user expectation.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#76

Post by matkoniecz »

mgh2 wrote: post #58
headmelted wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I always sort of hoped that Apple would either enter the market at some point or acquire DuckDuckGo and try to build out to a larger user base. I realise this is pretty unrealistic, as I'm sure there are far more people out there who would much prefer DDG to remain independent of a megacorp. I assumed the reason Apple haven't entered the market is that there's likely no way to make money at it without becoming…

Is there a way to run a profitable search engine without relying on advertising? Ex: Cloud search - https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/

https://kagi.com/ has plans for subscriptions, I hope that they will have product worth paying for.

I spend enough time and effort searching that paying 50$/month[0] would make sense if it would get me clearly superior tool.

[0] for reference, I pay 250$/month for place where I live (in Poland).

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#77

Post by mrtksn »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #71
mrtksn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As we are not in a court in here, only the laymen opinion is relevant as it is impossible to make a strict legal discussion without having a strict legal process. I would say, Apple is very popular in the US but I don't see how it can be a monopoly when you can just order another device from Amazon and that device being just good or maybe better. In many other rich countries, people are choosing Samsung, Americans ca…

ok the discussion is about if Apple is a monopoly by the legal definition, if we followed your prescription it would mean we would be unable to have this discussion. One of the most important discussions in tech has to do with what companies are monopolies, in essence you are saying Hacker News cannot have this important discussion! I can't really comment more on this idea as I feel I would be compelled to violate HN…

We can have that discussion, fiction is a popular genre and I don't see why we can't have a lawsuit fiction. Just don't confuse it with reality.

Anyway, I don't like to pretend that we are in a court. Law is simply a system that countries find useful to deal with issues and it is its own thing that not always just and can change over time and need specialisation for doing correctly.

Just remember, Alan Turing was lawfully castrated back in the 50s. Let's not pretend that the lawful process is analogous to justice, it's simply a rules system where actors are executing the rules based on the available information and cannot be performed when rules, actors or information is missing.

Even if we were judges, how are we supposed to execute the legal process without collecting the necessary data, have the claims and defences? Therefore, the legal definition is irrelevant and it's actually wrecking the discussion by pushing it to a position where we don't have the tools to work on.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#78

Post by nefitty »

coolandsmartrr wrote: post #72

Why is the plaintiff, California Crane School, suing Apple and Google? As far as I see, the plaintiff is not in the tech business, as they're a school that teaches how to operate cranes[1] [1] https://www.californiacraneschool.com/

They're pivoting, so to speak.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#79

Post by fsflover »

mrtksn wrote: post #47
paulluuk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do you feel that anything other than 100% market share counts as a monopoly? Where would you draw the line?

> So do you feel that anything other than 100% market share counts as a monopoly? No I did not say that. I say, there's a healthy competition and there's no monopoly as people have viable alternatives and in many other countries people choose these alternatives and people where Apple is dominant do have the same alternatives to choose from. There's no such thing as "right of minimum market share" that Apple violates…

But do you honestly believe that a duopoly in which the two companies tightly collaborate provides a reasonable choice to the consumers?
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