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European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

europa.eu

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

#861

Post by reitanqild »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #825
reitanqild wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do understand that nobody, including politicians and FF users want to remove Chrome, Edge or Safari? You do understand that doing that would probably cost those companies (and everyone else) a lot more? We only want a level playing field. Giving companies a real fine is just a way to make sure the board and the shareholders actually gets the message ;-)

> You do understand that nobody, including politicians and FF users want to remove Chrome, Edge or Safari? It's punishment. If somebody wants it then somebody has a perverse incentive. > You do understand that doing that would probably cost those companies (and everyone else) a lot more? Exactly. You actually punish them, in the way directly contrary the the goal they were trying to achieve with their bad behavior, w…

> just because you're a foreign company, what are you supposed to do then?

Most foreign companies aren't considered bad actors.

We are talking about 1) the old Microsoft here - definitely a bad actor - getting rid of it seems to have been refreshing even for Microsoft shareholders.

- 2) Google, a company we many of us loved at some point but who might now be in need of some refreshing at least in some areas.

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

#862

Post by hrktb »

ummonk wrote: post #617
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…

They also don’t have an iOS consortium nor do work with other makers, so there is no bullying makers into doing what they want “or else”. That's the issue though. It seems that Google is being punished for being somewhat willing to work with other makers.

That’s an angle.

Google is exactly in the same position as Microsoft when they were caught red handed doing shitty stuff with the vendors.

The interesting part is both Microsoft and Google prioritized licensing/delivering the OS and associated software, keeping a healthy distance from building hardware. Google tried a bit more with the Nexus/Pixel programs, but even then the target was only for small scale niche devices.

What I am driving at is that once android got traction, Google’s position went way up while vendor’s bargaining power went down, even as vendors where the ones taking the risks down the line. That kind of unbalance makes it easier to have abusive contracts and business practices.

It starts with good intentions (working symbiothically with the makers at innovative products) but things change, and with success I’d guess different kind of people also come into the organization to push more aggressive practices.

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

#864

Post by appleflaxen »

izacus wrote: post #331
appleflaxen wrote: post #256

there is a lot of criticism of the EC by the HN community, but I am extremely happy to have some push-back against the oligopoly of Apple, Google, etc. let's do apple, facebook, and amazon next. now if we could only convince comcast to provide services to the EU.... having a small set of companies controlling everything harms all consumers.

This literally strengthens Apple because they'll keep shipping services with integrated features (banning competition) while Android devices will be banned from providing the same integrated experience.

> literally strengthens Apple

yes; but to exactly the same degree that it strengthens all other competitors.

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

#866

Post by bduerst »

PunchTornado wrote: post #783
soared wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because iOS is the major competitor?

so? anti-trust laws don't apply to iOS. iOS can do exactly what android does without any penalties.

The comparison made was based on standard functionality, not antitrust.

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

#867

Post by blub »

DannyBee wrote: post #842
blub wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked for so many years at Google, you should be aware that your employer is forbidding Android manufacturers to also produce any non-certified Android-based devices. No Android logo, no app store, no GApps, still forbidden if that company happens to sell an unrelated Android device. So in fact it is not about "whether Google is allowed to control the experience of Android phones that want to use the Google a…

(The rest we are going to disagree on. I know the specifics of these agreements and advised on some of them, so i can't talk about them for rea) "There's a very good chance that without it being open source it would have went precisely nowhere. " Why? You say a lot of things, but none seem to related to why this is true. As far as i can tell, it is definitively not true. The app developers were happy to go where ther…

Developers and users generally won't care whether it's open source, I agree. Manufacturers like Samsung or Sony would though, especially after their experiences with Symbian. Not because they care about freedom, but because they want to have some form of control over their own destiny.

The US market was always an anomaly and under tight carrier control. There the iPhone and Android enabled choice. This is however mostly irrelevant for the EU and especially for this verdict. It's undeniable that there are now fewer choices and competitors available, and that most of the ones that are gone have been killed by Android: Windows Phone, Blackberry, Symbian, Meego, FirefoxOS, etc.

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

#868

Post by IBM »

DannyBee wrote: post #842
blub wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked for so many years at Google, you should be aware that your employer is forbidding Android manufacturers to also produce any non-certified Android-based devices. No Android logo, no app store, no GApps, still forbidden if that company happens to sell an unrelated Android device. So in fact it is not about "whether Google is allowed to control the experience of Android phones that want to use the Google a…

(The rest we are going to disagree on. I know the specifics of these agreements and advised on some of them, so i can't talk about them for rea) "There's a very good chance that without it being open source it would have went precisely nowhere. " Why? You say a lot of things, but none seem to related to why this is true. As far as i can tell, it is definitively not true. The app developers were happy to go where ther…

Android got market share because it was free, not because it was good. If Google didn't share ad revenue with carriers and OEMs or tried to extract a license fee ala Windows, Google would not be sitting on 80% global market share today.

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

#869

Post by XparentX »

swebs wrote: post #295

>In particular, Google has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks"). Sounds a lot how Microsoft abused licensing agreements with OEMs to discourage them from selling PCs not bundled with Windows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Win…

I have been wondering when the USA would start fining Google, Facebook and other mega corporations. It seems that will not happen.

I am really glad that EU did this, been waiting years for this to happen. Other fines will surly come. You can’t eat and kill your competition too long before someone starts to sett the records straight.

A happy day for us consumers!

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

#870

Post by Jyaif »

datalist wrote: post #833
dmix wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the massive point that it was also happened to be far superior to Firefox and IE when it came out... And it held the #1 spot (by far) for nearly a decade while Firefox fumbled around and IE remained IE. It's crazy to say a product only succeeded because Google pushed it hard. Google (and Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) has a LONG list of failed products they pushed hard (Wave, Google Plus, etc). Did it play a r…

It had a few new concepts, mainly multi-processes, but "far superior when it came out" is a broad exaggeration. Equally, IE was far superior to Netscape when it came out ;) This is not to say Chrome is (now) the inferior browser but saying their marketing push has nothing to do with its market share is ignoring reality.

It had little things like multi-process, omnibox, and something like a 10x faster JS engine than the competition, but the real killer feature was the auto-updating.
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