9 ms·

How is this not illegal? If google took amazon off their search engine, what would happen?

• 8note 9y ago
  it's not illegal for Google to block Amazon's app store from Google play
  • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Very few people seem to remember Google started this little war with blocking access to Google Apps on Amazon devices and blocking their app store on Google Play equipped devices. It is weird though because a couple months ago I thought they had announced they had come to some agreement, and now it seems to be escalating again.
    • tacomonstrous 9y ago
      Did Amazon even apply for a MADA with Google to use the Play Store and their apps? They can choose at any time to not make their fork incompatible with mainline Android, and get access to the Play Store just like any other OEM. You seem to blame Google for Amazon wanting to have it both ways.
      • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        The MADA is not a legal document, and it's not really possible for Amazon to comply with it.
        • bitmapbrother 9y ago
          Why is that? All Amazon has to do is pass the CTS so that all Android apps can run on their devices and not just Amazon Android apps.
          • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
            As you're well aware, not only would Fire OS fail the CTS, it would be illegal to attempt to force Amazon Kindles to ship with Play Books in order to get access to other Google Apps. Which the MADA does indeed attempt.
            • bitmapbrother 9y ago
              Fire OS would fail the CTS because Amazon chooses not to use Google Play Services and instead use their replacements. I'm also confused as to your claims about illegality. What specifically would be illegal about Google asking Amazon to install their apps and services on their tablets so that they can pass the CTS? One more thing, when Amazon found out people were installing Google Play Services on their Fire Tablets they issued a software update to prevent that loophole.
            • Pyxl101 9y ago
              I don't think Google's contractual terms are illegal, though they certainly have a profound impact on any competition that uses Android or builds Android apps. See this article for a detailed analysis of Google's Mobile App Distribution Agreements (MADA): http://www.benedelman.org/news-021314/ http://www.benedelman.org/news-021314/ Furthermore, from my understanding, for any device to support streaming to Chromecast, it must have Google Play Services, which in turns means complying with MADA. The leaked MADA documents that the public has seen requires you to distribute all of Google's apps in a prominent position on your device, prevents you from forking Android - even on other, completely unrelated devices (prohibiting what Amazon did with Fire OS), requires you to give Google detailed sales information about your devices each month, and more. (Read the article I linked above, and/or review one of the linked MADAs (2).) So from what I've read about the MADA, supporting Chromecast streaming on Amazon devices would require a complete "takeover" of every Android-based device that Amazon sells, replacing FireOS with Google's Android, and forcing Amazon to bundle Google Play Services and all of Google's apps, and giving those apps the prominent position over Amazon's. The MADA would require this for all devices, even ones that wouldn't support Chromecast streaming. In a Recode interview (1), Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos implied that these business terms are the heart of the issue: > "We sell Roku, we sell Xbox, we sell Playstation. We're happy to sell competitive products on Amazon. When we sell those devices, we want our player — our Prime Video player — to be on the device, and we want it to be on the device with acceptable business terms. You can always get the player on the device. The question is, can you get it on there with acceptable business terms? And if you can't, then we don't want to sell it to our customers, because they're going to be buying it thinking they can watch Prime Video, and then they're going to be disappointed and return it." (1) https://www.recode.net/2016/5/31/11826394/amazon-apple-tv-google-chromecast https://www.recode.net/2016/5/31/11826394/amazon-apple-tv-go... (circa 1h:15m in video) (2) http://www.benedelman.org/docs/samsung-mada.pdf http://www.benedelman.org/docs/samsung-mada.pdf - see page labeled 6 of 14
    • zeeZ 9y ago
      Didn't Amazon start this by not allowing Chromecast to be sold on their platform?
      • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        Chromecasts can't be set up on Amazon devices such as the Kindle Fire, because Google prohibits Google Apps from being installed on Android forks. Therefore, Google was refusing to permit compatibility, functionally, with Amazon's devices. It appears that Amazon attempted to negotiate with Google over compatibility issues, and didn't get anywhere, and hence, chose to not sell devices which were intentionally blocked from being used with their tablets. (And of course, they did similar with Apple TV for the same reason.) There's no technical reason Chromecasts can't be set up by Kindle Fire devices, it's an intentionally-implemented block by Google.
        • JshWright 9y ago
          Amazon's fork of Android is not a platform Google is obligated to support. Amazon chooses not to include Chromecast support in their Amazon Video Android app
          • bitmapbrother 9y ago
            It should also be noted that Amazon's fork of Android, with the exception of the Linux Kernel, is closed source. They're not even a very good open source citizen as I don't think they've contributed anything back to AOSP.
            • whoisjuan 9y ago
              That's an unfair statement in the great scheme of open source. When you fork the Android Open Source Project you only get a backbone version of the OS. You start at level 0. Google keeps all its custom proprietary and key technologies closed (rightfully). Amazon is keeping its customization closed as well. As far as contributing back to the AOSP, that's another area where Google's iron grip on Android shows. You can report bugs and help to patch things, but there's no actual way to contribute anything meaningful to the roadmap.
    • bitmapbrother 9y ago
      Google didn't start "this little war" by blocking access to Google Apps on Amazon devices. Amazon chose to use their own apps, their own services and to also not be compliant with the Android Compatibility Test Suite (CTS).
      • bingobob 9y ago
        because of this Google Play and Play Services cannot be install on the device Google Casting depends on this.
      • kuschku 9y ago
        With "blocking access", you mean, they took the Android Open Source Project AOSP, compiled it, and added a few apps without removing any functionality or APIs. It is not Amazon’s fault that the Android Compatibility Test Suite requires the availability of proprietary Google code, and that the AOSP itself does not pass the CTS. It’s Google’s fault that Android’s open source version isn’t even considered Android anymore, nor does it have even a working email app anymore. It’s Google’s fault that over the last few years, the AOSP search app, music app, calendar app, contacts app, and finally even the phone app were all dropped and lost support.
        • bitmapbrother 9y ago
          >It is not Amazon’s fault that the Android Compatibility Test Suite requires the availability of proprietary Google code, and that the AOSP itself does not pass the CTS. The CTS is used to guarantee all Android apps on Google Play work on the device. That's on Amazon for not really caring to maintain compatibility and instead use their own services as a replacement. As for the AOSP not passing the CTS, it was never intended to do so. >It’s Google’s fault that Android’s open source version isn’t even considered Android anymore, nor does it have even a working email app anymore. According to the following link updates were made to the Email app 2 days ago which seems to indicate it's still maintained. https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Email/ https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Emai... >It’s Google’s fault that over the last few years, the AOSP search app, music app, calendar app, contacts app, and finally even the phone app were all dropped and lost support. These apps require Google services to even work and it's unrealistic to think Google is going to provide non OHA members free access to their servers.
    • macspoofing 9y ago
      >Very few people seem to remember Google started this little war with blocking access to Google Apps on Amazon devices It wasn't quite that. Amazon got pissy about Google following Apple's lead in taking a cut of digital in-app purchases. It's an insane policy, but it is an Apple policy that the industry adopted.
  • tacomonstrous 9y ago
    Amazon's app store, just like any other app that supports installing other apps, is already unavailable on the Play Store. One is of course quite free to sideload it if one wishes.
• ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  It's almost certainly illegal. At this point in the fight, Google and Amazon have both committed several blatant violations of antitrust law. And the US FTC has done nothing about it. It's possible they don't think two monopolies doing illegal things to each other is a problem, or that it cancels out somehow. Or they just don't want to do anything in general, as the case seems to be. I fear that with the number of anticompetitive actions the government has failed to act on at this point, companies may legitimately be able to claim as a defense that the government allowing these actions for so long was implicit acceptance of them as legal.
• tanilama 9y ago
  I don't know. It is like theatres forbid moviegoers to take their own food into it, so people can only choose a limited selection from within. I see this as more of a morale problem than a legal one. As a company advertised itself as customer obsession, this smells pretty bad.
• coretx 9y ago
  In international competition law, using your dominant position in market A in order to gain a dominant market position in market B is clearly illegal. Amazon is surely committing anti competetive behaviour, however i'm not certain about them legally speaking having a "dominant market position". Let's say lawsuits are filed, it will be moot anyhow since this type of litigation requires more time than the actual battle for the market position.
  • hedora 9y ago
    No reasonable court would conclude Amazon has a dominant position in online retail. /s
    • Dylan16807 9y ago
      Less than half, and if you look at "retail" it's a single digit. Not usually enough to get hit on monopoly measures!
      • coretx 9y ago
        It's fairly easy to breach ( international ) competition law and suffer the consequences without even coming remotely close to monopoly talk.
        • Dylan16807 9y ago
          Sure, but you can do that without being dominant at all! When it specifically comes to the issue of dominance, I'm not sure if Amazon is really there.
          • coretx 9y ago
            Dominant or not dominant is not the main issue; whether or not Amazon is abusing it's market power is. For a fact we know that force is exerted by Amazon from a different market resulting in a strategical advantage for Amazon and a heap of deadweight loss; something that ought to be illegal in all shapes and forms when created intentionally & mostly is. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss )
• jopsen 9y ago
  It ought to be... maybe we'll see an anti-trust case. Obviously, companies should have some choice in how they do business, and what products they choose to sell. I won't fault drug companies for refusing to participate in state-sanctioned murder, or super markets for selling exclusively organic. Nor do I fault AWS for not advertising Google Cloud products. But when you build a platform/infrastructure, maybe you also have to give up some control.
• driverdan 9y ago
  Why would it be illegal? Amazon should be able to decide what products they sell and Google should be able to stop selling at any retailer they want.