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Antitrust law is concerned with anti-competitive contracts and agreements. Apple controlling what Apple ships on Apple hardware is fine. Google controlling what

Antitrust law is concerned with anti-competitive contracts and agreements. Apple controlling what Apple ships on Apple hardware is fine. Google controlling what Samsung ships on Samsung hardware is not so fine.

panarky 11y ago
The point of the article is that Samsung is free to load up its phones with dozens of apps that compete directly with Google. Samsung can change the default search engine to Bing, they can pre-install Facebook, Whatsapp and Skype. They can make is so you can't uninstall Facebook if you don't want it. Seems like a much more competitive market than the Apple or Microsoft mobile ecosystems.
- millstone 11y ago
  > The point of the article is that Samsung is free to load up its phones with dozens of apps that compete directly with Google. OEMs must give the Google apps very prominent placement, including a Google search bar on the home screen, and in many cases set them as the default. But this isn't at the heart of the objection. The strongest point is that Google forbids its licensees from shipping alternative versions of Android. This means that Samsung cannot offer consumers a choice between (say) GoogleAndroid and Cyanogen. > Samsung can change the default search engine to Bing Google requires OEMs to set Google as the default search engine, according to the EU complaint. I don't know if that's true; I speculate it's not true for Samsung (which has negotiating leverage) but is true for smaller OEMs. > Seems like a much more competitive market than the Apple or Microsoft mobile ecosystems. No way. A true competitive market would be a bunch of Apple-like firms, independently building whatever products they want. Instead we have all but a handful of OEMs beholden to Google, under contracts which oblige them to do things Google's way, and no other way ("anti-fragmentation"). The article makes a case that consumers aren't being harmed by this, because OEMs make terrible software. This may be true. But it's still anti-competitive.

panarky 11y ago

The point of the article is that Samsung is free to load up its phones with dozens of apps that compete directly with Google. Samsung can change the default search engine to Bing, they can pre-install Facebook, Whatsapp and Skype. They can make is so you can't uninstall Facebook if you don't want it. Seems like a much more competitive market than the Apple or Microsoft mobile ecosystems.

millstone 11y ago
> The point of the article is that Samsung is free to load up its phones with dozens of apps that compete directly with Google. OEMs must give the Google apps very prominent placement, including a Google search bar on the home screen, and in many cases set them as the default. But this isn't at the heart of the objection. The strongest point is that Google forbids its licensees from shipping alternative versions of Android. This means that Samsung cannot offer consumers a choice between (say) GoogleAndroid and Cyanogen. > Samsung can change the default search engine to Bing Google requires OEMs to set Google as the default search engine, according to the EU complaint. I don't know if that's true; I speculate it's not true for Samsung (which has negotiating leverage) but is true for smaller OEMs. > Seems like a much more competitive market than the Apple or Microsoft mobile ecosystems. No way. A true competitive market would be a bunch of Apple-like firms, independently building whatever products they want. Instead we have all but a handful of OEMs beholden to Google, under contracts which oblige them to do things Google's way, and no other way ("anti-fragmentation"). The article makes a case that consumers aren't being harmed by this, because OEMs make terrible software. This may be true. But it's still anti-competitive.