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

701–710 of 975 posts

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

#701

Post by LolNoGenerics »

DannyBee wrote: post #694

The net outcome of this decision will be that nobody will create significant open platforms of this type anymore, because once you are successful you will no longer be able to have any control over the experience. Someone will always be able to find a market that you are hurting. If you actually read the decision that's essentially their underlying complaint. They dress it up in terms about search market blah blah bl…

So I can create an open platform and control how it is used? That doesn't make sense.

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

#702

Post by garmaine »

Radle wrote: post #194
garmaine wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the only way. Independent government auditors could make their own profits assessment and work off that. This is exactly what is done in other jurisdictions and other industries.

Let's say you have one profit bringing business unit like google ads. (Let's call it main unit) but you also have internal startups in your company (side units). But you only have one operations department, only one HR department etc. How do you account the expenses of these departments in relation to main business and the side units? You can't. If people are not forced don't write down exactly whether they spent the…

The setup explicitly allows for contextual customization of approach. You’re right that it is too complex an issue to precommit a strategy, which is why you don’t. It’s up to the discretion of the judge and the court as to what accounting strategy is used in the audit. If the company thinks it is unfair they can fight it as part of the proceedings or under an appeal.

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

#703

Post by IanCal »

zaroth wrote: post #479
antr wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said it "Market dominance is, as such, not illegal under EU antitrust rules." It isn't about a monopoly, it's about abusing power.

It’s about abusing the power of a monopolistic position in the market . The power being abused is the monopoly power. If you don’t have a monopoly and do things your partners/competitors don’t like, they can’t complain that you are abusing a dominant market position to get away with it. There’s nothing wrong with bundling. But when you have a monopoly on the market bundling suddenly is wrong and abusive even if it’s…

> If they were unrelated then the experience of Google Play Services would be identical with or without the other pieces (Chrome and Search). I don’t use Android so I can’t say for sure, but I’m quite confident that the overall experience suffers without all three pieces together.

The EU text talks about requiring chrome and search if the play store is installed. As a user of android, I cannot think of any way in which these are linked. I don't see why the play store wouldn't work without those two, or would even lose a single feature.

I suggest reading this:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm

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

#704

Post by IanCal »

ekianjo wrote: post #15
rjvbk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does not have a monopoly dominant position. In my country I think they are like 10% of the market. You can't abuse your dominant position if you don't have one.

Android does not have a monopoly either. You can buy an iPhone.

They have a dominant market position. The EU does not use the term "monopoly" so complaints that it is not a monopoly are irrelevant.

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm

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

#705

Post by codedokode »

DannyBee wrote: post #694

The net outcome of this decision will be that nobody will create significant open platforms of this type anymore, because once you are successful you will no longer be able to have any control over the experience. Someone will always be able to find a market that you are hurting. If you actually read the decision that's essentially their underlying complaint. They dress it up in terms about search market blah blah bl…

I cannot agree. The main problem is that Google has proprietary Google Play Services and instead of just selling it Google sets additional terms that prevent competition, like preinstalling competitors' search engines, or competitors' software. It is difficult to earn large profits in a competing market; but this is benefecial for consumers and their interests should be put before Google's.

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

#706

Post by LamaOfRuin »

nojvek wrote: post #580
LamaOfRuin wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem with the result, or the punitive nature of it. I do think that basing fine calculations for violations of EU law on global revenue is a problematic precedent (though if it was based on EU revenue it would absolutely have to have a fair amount of latitude in calculation to avoid all the same tax dodges already in use).

I think 4.3 is a reasonable number even for EU revenue. American multinational tech companies suck a ridiculous amount of money from the rest of the world. The US would rarely do anything to harm their corporations. The latest govt is literally “A govt for corporations, by corporations”.

Yeah, I have no problem with the specific number. I just think if it should be that high, it should be a higher percentage and based on EU revenue. That would seem much less legally dubious in a world where I would like global trade to continue to function.

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

#707

Post by paulie_a »

DannyBee wrote: post #694

The net outcome of this decision will be that nobody will create significant open platforms of this type anymore, because once you are successful you will no longer be able to have any control over the experience. Someone will always be able to find a market that you are hurting. If you actually read the decision that's essentially their underlying complaint. They dress it up in terms about search market blah blah bl…

Im glad, the openness of Android led to incredibly terrible phones with all kinds of crapware, Samsung being the worst. I wish Google would have just sold the os to oems with tight restrictions.

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

#708

Post by trasz »

pertymcpert wrote: post #635
LamaOfRuin wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is always an interesting problem of definition and separation. If all the things google claims are absolutely essential and inseparable as part of 'Android' the license could well be interpreted as requiring them to open source all of it. If, on the other hand, these are all separate pieces of software and not totally dependent to deliver the end 'experience' then that contradicts some of Google's legal argument…

The GPL issue is completely separate. The law regarding GPL and where is applies vs LGPL is well understood.

Not really, no. There's the FSF interpretation on one hand, but on the other there are companies like VMWare which happily put binary blobs into the Linux kernel and don't consider it a "derived work".

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

#709

Post by codedokode »

joering2 wrote: post #513
philipodonnell wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Internet Explorer. This case seems almost a mirror of MS except in the phone space instead of PC. Only difference is that when the issue came up in Congress, MS was confrontational with regulators and Google cut some fat checks.

Also Chrome. Chrome was the biggest shocker to many @ Goog. Even as a Noogler, people often sit down in cafeteria and talked about how Chrome got traction and so popular only because it got a main spot on Google's homepage; something noone, no company or individual advertiser can ever bid for. If that's not Google's "Microsoft Internet Explorer anti-trust" moment, then nothing is.

That is an important point; you might be ten times more talented than Google engineers but you won't get your browser promoted on the on of the most popular internet pages or preinstalled with Android. Google is using its dominance in one area to disrupt competition in other areas. I think that this is something that should not be allowed.

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

#710

Post by trasz »

LamaOfRuin wrote: post #530
trasz wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor nit: Google didn't have to Open Source the whole Android because of Linux; Linux is just one of many components, and Linux' license doesn't apply to the rest of the software there.

This is always an interesting problem of definition and separation. If all the things google claims are absolutely essential and inseparable as part of 'Android' the license could well be interpreted as requiring them to open source all of it. If, on the other hand, these are all separate pieces of software and not totally dependent to deliver the end 'experience' then that contradicts some of Google's legal argument…

Has Google actually claimed the kernel is "essential and inseparable", or did they just do that wrt the closed-source Google apps, though?
Post reply on HN