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EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

reuters.com

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Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#91

Post by msabalau »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #81
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is not licencing iOS to OEMs. In other words they're also tying iOS to their hardware and vice versa. This is supposed to make it less of an antitrust issue? > They are also very far away from a monopoly. They sure look like a monopoly to an iOS app developer or iOS app customer who wants app store competition to drive down app store margins.

And Tesla has a monopoly on making Teslas. Your definition of "monopoly" is inaccurate. Android is 85% of the smartphone market. iOS is 13% of the smartphone market. Android is a monopoly, iOS is not.

If the objection is the alleged difficulty in installing competing app stores, why isn't the relevant market the market for apps, rather than the market for phones?

Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#92

Post by millstone »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #70
unlinker wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not licencing iOS to OEMs. They are also very far away from a monopoly.

> Apple is not licencing iOS to OEMs. In other words they're also tying iOS to their hardware and vice versa. This is supposed to make it less of an antitrust issue? > They are also very far away from a monopoly. They sure look like a monopoly to an iOS app developer or iOS app customer who wants app store competition to drive down app store margins.

Antitrust law is concerned with unlawful contracts, collusion, and cartels. It's meant to ensure that businesses compete by acting independently.

Apple is acting independently. They've built differentiating features (like custom software) which you can only get by buying Apple's products. Apple hopes that customers will use their products because they're better than the competition. That is exactly what antitrust law is meant to encourage.

Google is not acting independently. They've built differentiating features, but licensed them under terms that prevent competition. Google hopes that customers will use their products because OEMs are contractually forbidden from selling competing products. That is what antitrust law is designed to prevent.

Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#93

Post by ocdtrekkie »

wstrange wrote: post #90
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Android would probably thrive if it was unprofitable. It'd end up in the hands of the open source community, instead of a greedy corporation controlling it with secret contracts.

I think you are underestimating the amount of work that goes into producing a high quality mobile O/S. Someone has to fund that effort.

And various interests building products based on Android will fund it or directly contribute. Note: Development on Linux happens.

Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#94

Post by cromwellian »

I just came back from China, in which most of the phones I used did not have Google Play, or Play Services, and had replacements for everything.

If you try to use an phone with Google Play in China, you need a VPN, since if the app calls things like location services, it'll get blocked, for example, Taxi hailing apps could not retrieve the location, however with a native-phone, they work.

Needless to say, the experience of the fork of all of these services is inconsistent between devices and makes it less easy to move between phone vendors. One paradoxical outcome could be that you could get locked into XiaoMi, Huawei, etc.

Also, the experience of 9 different appstores is kind of jarring. I think it would be better if apps simply worked like the Web, and could be safe enough to stream-through and purchased through distributed payment systems.

Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#95

Post by gruntled »

jbob2000 wrote: post #4

Totally implausible scenario, but what would happen if Google were to say "to hell with this" and just completely pull out of the EU? Like full-stop, nothing Google touching the EU. Would there be riots? Would governments try to force Google back? Like, are they so essential to digital life that a complete withdrawal would cause some amount of chaos? And if that's the case, isn't an antitrust suit a bit disingenuous?…

If that's the case, if Google could cause massive disruption by pulling out of the EU, they have effectively monopoly power in that market. So if that's the case, the suit is anything but disingenuous.

Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#96

Post by mjevans »

kuschku wrote: post #52
bad_user wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the store is a proprietary and effectively closed app ecosystem completely under Google's control, thus the issue of monopoly exploitation. Having a monopoly isn't illegal. Using that monopoly to gain an advantage in newer markets is. And the problem with this argument is that you're getting this backwards: when Android 1.0 shipped, Google already had a foothold with Search, Gmail and Maps. The whole purpose of…

The violations are that SAMSUNG can not ship devices with Kindle-Android. You can only ship non-Google-droid devices if none of your devices use the Play Store, and you can only ship Play Store devices if none of your devices are non-Google-droid devices. That’s what the EU complains about, and that’s what is worthy of several billion in punishment.

As a form of consumer protection I can see why that is desirable.

I think if a company wanted to create a strong branding, for which it would be known that the experience is distinctly NOT android (even if it's based on android) then that is more acceptable.

'Android phone' implies that the google play store and apps are on the device.

Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#97

Post by cdibona »

wnevets wrote: post #86
scholia wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the documentation itself is available to you under the Apache 2.0 license, note that proprietary trademarks and brand features are not included in that license. Google's trademarks and other brand features (including the Android stylized typeface logo) are not included in the license. https://source.android.com/license.html Android is a proprietary trademark wholly owned by Google. See also: Leverage over manuf…

maybe I'm dumb but I'm missing the part where Android is a proprietary trademark.

The term Android is not trademarked. Even the bugdroid is released under a cc-attrib license. Funnily, the term 'droid' is trademarked and licensed by lucasfilm/disney mostly.

Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#98

Post by victorhooi »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #93
wstrange wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are underestimating the amount of work that goes into producing a high quality mobile O/S. Someone has to fund that effort.

And various interests building products based on Android will fund it or directly contribute. Note: Development on Linux happens.

Yes, and it's totally the year of the Linux desktop....not.

Look, I love Linux as much as the next guy - and I plodded along with Slackware, then Ubuntu, then Arch as my main machine for many years. Heck, I even used Gentoo as my main box for a while.

But let's be completely honest - Linux on the desktop compared to say OSX, or Windows, or even ChromeOS - doesn't even hold a candle, in terms of cohesive UX design, user experience, general polish etc.

So whilst the OSS community seems great at some things, UX design and the user experience for the non-technical user hasn't been one of them.

Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#99

Post by nostrebored »

pjc50 wrote: post #25
sievebrain wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All? At first, lower quality? I think you massively underestimate how much investment is required to produce even a basic search engine, let alone one that eventually catches up to what Google has produced. And that's just search. Now throw in Gmail, Maps, Android, Chrome, etc ... these are international collaborations for a reason.

There are plenty of replacements for all of those except Android. Multiple browsers, various mapping companies (including OpenStreetMap), multiple email providers, multiple browser vendors. There's also Bing, and the various ancient abandoned former greats of search: Altavista (now Yahoo), Lycos.

Pretending that things come close to the richness of features in GMaps is ridiculous. Topographical maps for cyclists, amazing transit maps with descriptions of stops, reliable use internationally (google maps is still amazing in places like Indonesia) and a generally good list of hours, restaurants, queries like 'near me'... I think that other products are far and away worse every time that I am linked to them.

Even people on HN who mention trying to use other search engines talk about having to frequently come back to google to find the result that they need. Whether that's us 'learning to Google' or Google being a superior product is up for debate.

Re: EU hits Google with second antitrust charge

#100

Post by takno »

pjc50 wrote: post #17
wnevets wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>. The problem isn't the OS itself, it is the Play Store hegemony and the fact you cannot reasonably ship an Android phone without it - nobody would buy it. isn't this what amazon does?

And as a result they have terrible sales: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/26/amazon-fi...

Amazon's android fork is desperately bad irrespective of their app store. If you aren't primarily using the device to consume Amazon content it is essentially useless
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