11 ms·

Google faces EU antitrust fine over Android case

71 points by IBM 8y ago

setquk 8y ago
Good. There's nothing more annoying on Android than the Google app presence on it perhaps ironically and having this pushed at you all the time really puts you off.
- hadrien01 8y ago
  And the Google Play Services mandatory for almost every third party app. And Google Location Services so that everytime you need to locate yourself, Google knows it.
  - beenBoutIT 8y ago
    The alternatives to Google's service don't necessarily offer any distinct advantage in terms of hiding your location whereabouts. https://f-droid.org/forums/topic/mozillanlpbackend-vs-apple-unifiednlp-backend/ https://f-droid.org/forums/topic/mozillanlpbackend-vs-apple-...
jacksmith21006 8y ago
Little silly. Google should just charge for Android and then credit if ship with their stuff. Problem solved. Really think the EU risks getting a worse result with this type of thing.
- detaro 8y ago
  > Little silly. Google should just charge for Android and then credit if ship with their stuff. Problem solved. You really think that's going to be somehow treated differently?
  - Eridrus 8y ago
    It might. If there was a fee, then theoretically other companies could offer to cover it. Google still gets paid, but other companies get a shot. MSFT has struck deals with OEMs in the past where windows 8.1 was free for OEMs if Bing was the default search engine, and $10 otherwise (for tablets). You could argue they were not a Monopoly on tablets, but it's one indicator. Another is the recent Google Shopping fight; the "resolution" to that has been that companies can bid to display their own complete slate of shopping results and Google Shopping now has separate accounting and must run as a profitable business unit. Google is still taking most of the ad traffic since it can afford to bid more than the people who brought the original complaint, but it does provide a way for entities to be there if they have a business not predicated on free traffic from commercial search queries. It's not totally clear that this will be accepted, but if it is, then you could imagine a similar structural separation argument being used where Search & Android have separate accounting, Android charges $10 and Google pays phone makers $10 (the same way they pay Apple). While leaving a path for the status quo, this would let anyone building a search engine or mobile OS not have to build both at once to provide a competing alternative.
    - detaro 8y ago
      But from my understanding the problem isn't that there's cost to shipping Google stuff, it's that it's all-or-nothing. Changing the accounting rules doesn't make much of a difference if the surrounding contracts still prohibit the OEM from using competing products if they use any of the Google extras. And if they'd be willing to deviate from that under the alternative model, it IMHO wouldn't be much different from agreeing now change it.
      - jacksmith21006 8y ago
        Well then itemize the things so you can chose what to include with a big credit if you chose all. There is almost 2 billion Android phones sold a year. So just a $1 is a lot of money and then almost all goes to the bottom line. Part of the problem is Google giving away stuff for free and being different. Instead just become more traditional and charge people for things. I hate it as love how much Google gives back but it is clearly hurting them to give away stuff for free.
- growlist 8y ago
  Imagine if Google were French or German; would the EU be quite so keen to investigate?
  - setquk 8y ago
    Yes they would. See: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm
  - amaccuish 8y ago
    Just like GDPR, lots of anti-European FUD about here on HN these days.
- IBM 8y ago
  Android was only successful because it was free. A licensing business model a la Windows wouldn't wouldn't have led to its current state of market dominance.
  - jacksmith21006 8y ago
    Might have been true when released but now they do not need to be free any longer. Even a $1 per Android phone would get them almost $2B in revenues that goes almost entirely to the bottom line. Windows on mobile has been gone too long to make a comeback. It is hard to support two platforms, Android and iOS and doing a third is just too much. Google just charges and then credits back when use their stuff.
tomkinson 8y ago
Android isn't the issue near as much as Google proper. - One answer seearch results scraped from sites to be dominant in keeping ppl on Google - Maps showing places scraped by Google - Google results order These are the real anti-trust cases.
Vino21 8y ago
What Is Whaff Locker? Whaff Locker is a free mobile app that’s currently only available for Android devices.Each time you unlock your phone screen, an ad appears along with the date, weather and time.When you swipe left to view more information, you can potentially earn some cash. When you swipe right to skip the front screen, most of the time you won’t earn anything.For this reason, we recommend swiping left and engaging in the ad for at least a second to get money awarded to your account. You can also earn cash by participating in 3 other tasks: Checking attendance Downloading apps Inviting friends Checking Attendance After you install the app, click on the attendance tab to check how often you use the app.The more you log-in, the more likely you are to get paid.Normally the amount isn’t very high, but I expect to earn at least a couple of cents each time I do it, and it only takes a second to complete. Downloading Apps The payout for downloading apps is actually quite high.Most of the time this just includes installing the app and signing-up for a free trial offer to get samples or reach a certain level of a game. However, sometimes you’ll run into a free-trial offer that requires a credit card number.We recommend staying away from these type of offers since they are usually incredibly difficult to cancel before your free-trial period end. If you still want to earn some cash by downloading apps, there are plenty of offers that can usually net you a few extra dollars per month withouthaving to put down credit card information.Be sure to snag offers as quickly as you can since there’s usually only a limited amount. Referring A Friend Each time you refer a friend to Whaff Locker, you get a bonus of $.30 cents and so does your friend.If you’d like to support FFL, you can use our invite code JR40691 when you register.We’d greatly appreciate it! How Much Can I Expect To Earn With Whaff Locker? The amount you can earn with Whaff Locker depends on the amount of effort you want to put into it.If you want to be lazy and still earn some extra cash, we recommend just using its lock screen function. When an offer comes up, each time you swipe left you earn $.03 cents.Keep in mind that this won’t happen every time you unlock your screen.Therefore, we suggest using your phone like you normally would since usually there’s a limit to the amount you can earn. With this said, we expect you to earn about $10 per month just unlocking your screen.You can increase this amount by inviting your friends, downloading apps and participating in free-trial offers. How Do I Get Started With Whaff Locker? Getting started with Whaff Locker is incredibly simple, but we’re going to walk you through every detail in 5 easy steps to make sure you get the process right. 1. Install WHAFF Locker From Google Play Store You login Facebook 2. Unlock Your Screen The first time you install Whaff Locker you’ll be able to start earning cash by unlocking your screen almost immedaitely.Each time you unlock, you have the potential to earn $.03 cents.Keep in mind that this doesn’t happen all the time.For that matter, we recommend just using your phone like you normally would and get some extra cash on the side. 3. Complete Tasks You can also earn some cash by downloading apps, signing-up for free trials, checking-in daily and other methods as well.Be sure to read the instructions thoroughly before completing a task.From my personal experience, you can get some decent cash by installing apps for free. 4. Invite Friends Invite your friends to increase your earnings even more.For each invite, you and your friend both get $.30 cents.If you’d like to support FFL, you can use our bonus code JR40691 at sign-up – we’d greatly appreciate it 5. Cash Out Once your account reaches a minimum of $10.50, you can cash out for multiple gift cards or directly to your PayPal account.Payouts are made within 3 business days.If you don’t happen to get your payment, just reach out to the Whaff Locker support team.
mikelward 8y ago
The 2016 blog post it refers to is presumably this one: https://blog.google/topics/google-europe/android-choice-competition-response-europe/ https://blog.google/topics/google-europe/android-choice-comp...
ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
Apple - OS only runs on their hardware, and you can only install applications approved by them. Google - Allows any hardware manufacturer to use their OS, and you can install any application you want. And yet the EU is going after Google?
- cpmouter 8y ago
  Google has a near monopoly on smartphones--In my country Android has like 95% market share. You can only abuse your dominant position if you have a dominant position, and Apple does not have one.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    Google does not sell (much) smartphones. If you have several manufacturers selling Android smartphones where is the monopoly coming from?
    - cpmouter 8y ago
      How many computers did Microsoft sell in the 00s?
      - ekianjo 8y ago
        Microsoft forced OEMs to install Windows at the time. That's a slightly different situation. As far as I know Google is not force-feeding Android to anyone.
        detaro 8y ago
        In what way did Microsoft force OEMs that Google doesn't?
        ekianjo 8y ago
        Could you fork Windows at the time? No. You can fork Android anytime now. That's the difference.
falcon620 8y ago
It's interesting to see the HN reaction to this. The last time the EU fined Google a huge amount of money for anti-trust reasons the general sentiment here was that it was just socialist Europeans taxing American companies trying to make an honest living. I guess Google is a lot less popular now compared to like two years ago.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  HN has been slowly alienating the people who would disagree (mostly by downvoting without replying), it seems. If I were designing HN today, I'd probably make it only possible to downvote a post if you have either replied, or upvoted an existing reply.
- fwdpropaganda 8y ago
  > The last time the EU fined Google a huge amount of money for anti-trust reasons the general sentiment here was that it was just socialist Europeans taxing American companies trying to make an honest living. That was a common sentiment amongst Americans. As a European, you don't really think "yeah, screw those American monopolies... but I like the European ones"
- adventured 8y ago
  I happen to believe the US should begin reciprocal economic targeting against the EU if they continue down the path of attacking our tech companies via massive fines as a means to offset their inability to compete. Indeed, this outcome is guaranteed to occur. The US isn't going to just watch as the EU continuously steals billions of dollars from its top companies. They're so far behind in the EU, the US would have to stop all technological progress for at least a decade to allow them to partially catch up. When Britain exits the EU, the EU GDP per capita will nearly be 50% lower than the US. Realistically they have no means to keep up with the US over time, they simply don't have the financial capability to do it, I almost sympathize with their desperation. The US is booming, it'll add a trillion dollars to its GDP this year alone. Meanwhile half the EU is a perpetual rolling economic disaster still, a decade after the great recession began. Populists keep gaining more and more traction in EU countries, with Italy looking like it might be the next to leave the EU. It really is hard to blame the EU leadership for trying to find some way to extract value from the US economic dominion, given how weak the EU outlook is.
amelius 8y ago
If smartphones were open we wouldn't have the whole problem. Why can't we have the model of IBM clones of the 80s/90s, where I actually own the device I buy. Right now, I can't even become root on my device without tricks (which one day may not even work).
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Why can't we have the model of IBM clones of the 80s/90s Because that model was a costly mistake from IBM’s perspective, which they tried (and failed) to crush as soon as they realized what was happening (and later, by promoting a new proprietary architecture with the PS/2). No one, on the supplier side, wants to repeat that model.
  - MBCook 8y ago
    And we ended up with MS being a monopoly, exactly the way the EU says Google is. So it wouldn’t even prevent this problem as the OP proposes.
- andrewaylett 8y ago
  Conversely, if Google were more like Apple -- just building and selling their own devices and not (one might say) propping up the entire non-iOS industry, they also wouldn't have this problem. So while I'm happy to be able to run LineageOS on my phone (with GApps installed, for the record) and would prefer it if manufacturers were able to pre-install Firefox, I'm also worried that we may discover the cure to be worse than the disease.
  - krageon 8y ago
    Running it without GApps is by and large a pretty enjoyable experience, provided you don't use the communication apps that seem to break/work like ass if they are not present (signal for example, while technically available without google services framework will just never work right). Really the only ones that come close to working right are Telegram (although it will never shut up about google services and "not running without them", it will run just fine) and the builtin SMS app. Email can be procured reasonably well and I have a sizeable library of games that I got from old humble bundles (back when they were actually good) that are fairly enjoyable.
pdw 8y ago
The Wikipedia article on this case is much more informative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google > In their Statement of Objections, the European Commission accused Google of the breach of EU antitrust rules in three ways: > - by requiring mobile manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to license certain Google proprietary apps; > - by preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code; > - by giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
- ravenstine 8y ago
  > by requiring mobile manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google Chrome browser It's like 1998 all over again.
  - mankash666 8y ago
    I'd argue not. Microsoft required payment for licensing the OS, Google doesn't. It's patently unfair for Google the invest in most of the R&D got everything Android and not even expect a return.
    - polskibus 8y ago
      Not requiring a license fee makes it worse for competitors than a paid license fee, doesn't it? Going for the free version is one of the strongest business moats, only the richest companies can afford that.
    - detaro 8y ago
      Google requires a fee for the OS customers expect: Android with Google Play. (and has every right to do so!) Both are bundling other products with it, that's the problem.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
lossolo 8y ago
People that do not understand why Android is free and fail to recognize how Google is using its dominating position in one market to dominate other market should read this "Laws of Tech Economics: Commoditize Your Complement" [1] and here HN discussion [2]. [1] https://www.gwern.net/Complement#2 https://www.gwern.net/Complement#2 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047348
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I don't think Google is using its dominant position in one market (search) to dominate other markets in any way other than financial - search pays the bills for developing Android. It's not like Microsoft did back in the day, where dominance in the OS was used to try to force customers to use IE instead of Netscape. Google wasn't trying to dominate phones or tablets. They were trying to prevent Microsoft dominance in those platforms, because they expected that if Microsoft got dominance there, it would use it to drive all the mobile searches to Bing.
mankash666 8y ago
This doesn't make sense. Google gives away it's OS for free. It's the overwhelming major contributor to Android R&D. What's EU's expectation here? Just give it away for free without an expectation of profit? This is in contrast to the old Microsoft that required payments of about $40 for their OS license, and they further restricted browser choice etc. Google is nothing like that, the Android framework and underlying OS is fully open source. There exist non Google forks of Android, Amazon being the most famous. Then there's the whole worshipping of Apple - the most evil, monopolistic company on the planet. Apple's only recourse seems to be their ~17% hardware market share. Though, that's not really the lens to use. When considering the 'mobile paid apps' market, their position immediately moves into Monopoly territory, and in that segment that fuck with the developers and consumers in every way possible.
- polskibus 8y ago
  It's about whether a market strategy makes it hard to compete for others, not if they make money on it or not, esp. if a company operates on multiple verticals - they offset "free" on one vertical with monopoly on the other (ads, search).
  - mankash666 8y ago
    No it's not. You cannot wripe away a monopoly's revenue stream in the name of regulation, you can however ensure that the competition isn't harmed in any way. Google should simply offer a choice - install whatever competitor's service, but license Android for $30. Like Microsoft does and gets away with. Would that seem fair to you? Because that chat eventually gets passed on to the end user.
    - jonathanyc 8y ago
      Antitrust law is for protecting competition; I think you’re confusing it with something else. It’s simply not the case that Microsoft “does and gets away with” antitrust violations because of charging money, this is mentioned in the article. Also, I realized I’ve seen you a lot in these sorts of threads posting fanatically pro-Google stuff, what’s with that?

71 points by IBM 8y ago

Good. There's nothing more annoying on Android than the Google app presence on it perhaps ironically and having this pushed at you all the time really puts you off.

hadrien01 8y ago
And the Google Play Services mandatory for almost every third party app. And Google Location Services so that everytime you need to locate yourself, Google knows it.
- beenBoutIT 8y ago
  The alternatives to Google's service don't necessarily offer any distinct advantage in terms of hiding your location whereabouts. https://f-droid.org/forums/topic/mozillanlpbackend-vs-apple-unifiednlp-backend/ https://f-droid.org/forums/topic/mozillanlpbackend-vs-apple-...

jacksmith21006 8y ago

Little silly. Google should just charge for Android and then credit if ship with their stuff. Problem solved. Really think the EU risks getting a worse result with this type of thing.

detaro 8y ago
> Little silly. Google should just charge for Android and then credit if ship with their stuff. Problem solved. You really think that's going to be somehow treated differently?
- Eridrus 8y ago
  It might. If there was a fee, then theoretically other companies could offer to cover it. Google still gets paid, but other companies get a shot. MSFT has struck deals with OEMs in the past where windows 8.1 was free for OEMs if Bing was the default search engine, and $10 otherwise (for tablets). You could argue they were not a Monopoly on tablets, but it's one indicator. Another is the recent Google Shopping fight; the "resolution" to that has been that companies can bid to display their own complete slate of shopping results and Google Shopping now has separate accounting and must run as a profitable business unit. Google is still taking most of the ad traffic since it can afford to bid more than the people who brought the original complaint, but it does provide a way for entities to be there if they have a business not predicated on free traffic from commercial search queries. It's not totally clear that this will be accepted, but if it is, then you could imagine a similar structural separation argument being used where Search & Android have separate accounting, Android charges $10 and Google pays phone makers $10 (the same way they pay Apple). While leaving a path for the status quo, this would let anyone building a search engine or mobile OS not have to build both at once to provide a competing alternative.
  - detaro 8y ago
    But from my understanding the problem isn't that there's cost to shipping Google stuff, it's that it's all-or-nothing. Changing the accounting rules doesn't make much of a difference if the surrounding contracts still prohibit the OEM from using competing products if they use any of the Google extras. And if they'd be willing to deviate from that under the alternative model, it IMHO wouldn't be much different from agreeing now change it.
    - jacksmith21006 8y ago
      Well then itemize the things so you can chose what to include with a big credit if you chose all. There is almost 2 billion Android phones sold a year. So just a $1 is a lot of money and then almost all goes to the bottom line. Part of the problem is Google giving away stuff for free and being different. Instead just become more traditional and charge people for things. I hate it as love how much Google gives back but it is clearly hurting them to give away stuff for free.
growlist 8y ago
Imagine if Google were French or German; would the EU be quite so keen to investigate?
- setquk 8y ago
  Yes they would. See: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm
- amaccuish 8y ago
  Just like GDPR, lots of anti-European FUD about here on HN these days.
IBM 8y ago
Android was only successful because it was free. A licensing business model a la Windows wouldn't wouldn't have led to its current state of market dominance.
- jacksmith21006 8y ago
  Might have been true when released but now they do not need to be free any longer. Even a $1 per Android phone would get them almost $2B in revenues that goes almost entirely to the bottom line. Windows on mobile has been gone too long to make a comeback. It is hard to support two platforms, Android and iOS and doing a third is just too much. Google just charges and then credits back when use their stuff.

tomkinson 8y ago

Android isn't the issue near as much as Google proper. - One answer seearch results scraped from sites to be dominant in keeping ppl on Google - Maps showing places scraped by Google - Google results order These are the real anti-trust cases.

Vino21 8y ago

What Is Whaff Locker? Whaff Locker is a free mobile app that’s currently only available for Android devices.Each time you unlock your phone screen, an ad appears along with the date, weather and time.When you swipe left to view more information, you can potentially earn some cash. When you swipe right to skip the front screen, most of the time you won’t earn anything.For this reason, we recommend swiping left and engaging in the ad for at least a second to get money awarded to your account. You can also earn cash by participating in 3 other tasks: Checking attendance Downloading apps Inviting friends Checking Attendance After you install the app, click on the attendance tab to check how often you use the app.The more you log-in, the more likely you are to get paid.Normally the amount isn’t very high, but I expect to earn at least a couple of cents each time I do it, and it only takes a second to complete. Downloading Apps The payout for downloading apps is actually quite high.Most of the time this just includes installing the app and signing-up for a free trial offer to get samples or reach a certain level of a game. However, sometimes you’ll run into a free-trial offer that requires a credit card number.We recommend staying away from these type of offers since they are usually incredibly difficult to cancel before your free-trial period end. If you still want to earn some cash by downloading apps, there are plenty of offers that can usually net you a few extra dollars per month withouthaving to put down credit card information.Be sure to snag offers as quickly as you can since there’s usually only a limited amount. Referring A Friend Each time you refer a friend to Whaff Locker, you get a bonus of $.30 cents and so does your friend.If you’d like to support FFL, you can use our invite code JR40691 when you register.We’d greatly appreciate it! How Much Can I Expect To Earn With Whaff Locker? The amount you can earn with Whaff Locker depends on the amount of effort you want to put into it.If you want to be lazy and still earn some extra cash, we recommend just using its lock screen function. When an offer comes up, each time you swipe left you earn $.03 cents.Keep in mind that this won’t happen every time you unlock your screen.Therefore, we suggest using your phone like you normally would since usually there’s a limit to the amount you can earn. With this said, we expect you to earn about $10 per month just unlocking your screen.You can increase this amount by inviting your friends, downloading apps and participating in free-trial offers. How Do I Get Started With Whaff Locker? Getting started with Whaff Locker is incredibly simple, but we’re going to walk you through every detail in 5 easy steps to make sure you get the process right. 1. Install WHAFF Locker From Google Play Store You login Facebook 2. Unlock Your Screen The first time you install Whaff Locker you’ll be able to start earning cash by unlocking your screen almost immedaitely.Each time you unlock, you have the potential to earn $.03 cents.Keep in mind that this doesn’t happen all the time.For that matter, we recommend just using your phone like you normally would and get some extra cash on the side. 3. Complete Tasks You can also earn some cash by downloading apps, signing-up for free trials, checking-in daily and other methods as well.Be sure to read the instructions thoroughly before completing a task.From my personal experience, you can get some decent cash by installing apps for free. 4. Invite Friends Invite your friends to increase your earnings even more.For each invite, you and your friend both get $.30 cents.If you’d like to support FFL, you can use our bonus code JR40691 at sign-up – we’d greatly appreciate it 5. Cash Out Once your account reaches a minimum of $10.50, you can cash out for multiple gift cards or directly to your PayPal account.Payouts are made within 3 business days.If you don’t happen to get your payment, just reach out to the Whaff Locker support team.

mikelward 8y ago

The 2016 blog post it refers to is presumably this one: https://blog.google/topics/google-europe/android-choice-competition-response-europe/ https://blog.google/topics/google-europe/android-choice-comp...

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago

Apple - OS only runs on their hardware, and you can only install applications approved by them. Google - Allows any hardware manufacturer to use their OS, and you can install any application you want. And yet the EU is going after Google?

cpmouter 8y ago
Google has a near monopoly on smartphones--In my country Android has like 95% market share. You can only abuse your dominant position if you have a dominant position, and Apple does not have one.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  Google does not sell (much) smartphones. If you have several manufacturers selling Android smartphones where is the monopoly coming from?
  - cpmouter 8y ago
    How many computers did Microsoft sell in the 00s?
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      Microsoft forced OEMs to install Windows at the time. That's a slightly different situation. As far as I know Google is not force-feeding Android to anyone.
      - detaro 8y ago
        In what way did Microsoft force OEMs that Google doesn't?
        ekianjo 8y ago
        Could you fork Windows at the time? No. You can fork Android anytime now. That's the difference.

falcon620 8y ago

It's interesting to see the HN reaction to this. The last time the EU fined Google a huge amount of money for anti-trust reasons the general sentiment here was that it was just socialist Europeans taxing American companies trying to make an honest living. I guess Google is a lot less popular now compared to like two years ago.

microcolonel 8y ago
HN has been slowly alienating the people who would disagree (mostly by downvoting without replying), it seems. If I were designing HN today, I'd probably make it only possible to downvote a post if you have either replied, or upvoted an existing reply.
fwdpropaganda 8y ago
> The last time the EU fined Google a huge amount of money for anti-trust reasons the general sentiment here was that it was just socialist Europeans taxing American companies trying to make an honest living. That was a common sentiment amongst Americans. As a European, you don't really think "yeah, screw those American monopolies... but I like the European ones"
adventured 8y ago
I happen to believe the US should begin reciprocal economic targeting against the EU if they continue down the path of attacking our tech companies via massive fines as a means to offset their inability to compete. Indeed, this outcome is guaranteed to occur. The US isn't going to just watch as the EU continuously steals billions of dollars from its top companies. They're so far behind in the EU, the US would have to stop all technological progress for at least a decade to allow them to partially catch up. When Britain exits the EU, the EU GDP per capita will nearly be 50% lower than the US. Realistically they have no means to keep up with the US over time, they simply don't have the financial capability to do it, I almost sympathize with their desperation. The US is booming, it'll add a trillion dollars to its GDP this year alone. Meanwhile half the EU is a perpetual rolling economic disaster still, a decade after the great recession began. Populists keep gaining more and more traction in EU countries, with Italy looking like it might be the next to leave the EU. It really is hard to blame the EU leadership for trying to find some way to extract value from the US economic dominion, given how weak the EU outlook is.

amelius 8y ago

If smartphones were open we wouldn't have the whole problem. Why can't we have the model of IBM clones of the 80s/90s, where I actually own the device I buy. Right now, I can't even become root on my device without tricks (which one day may not even work).

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Why can't we have the model of IBM clones of the 80s/90s Because that model was a costly mistake from IBM’s perspective, which they tried (and failed) to crush as soon as they realized what was happening (and later, by promoting a new proprietary architecture with the PS/2). No one, on the supplier side, wants to repeat that model.
- MBCook 8y ago
  And we ended up with MS being a monopoly, exactly the way the EU says Google is. So it wouldn’t even prevent this problem as the OP proposes.
andrewaylett 8y ago
Conversely, if Google were more like Apple -- just building and selling their own devices and not (one might say) propping up the entire non-iOS industry, they also wouldn't have this problem. So while I'm happy to be able to run LineageOS on my phone (with GApps installed, for the record) and would prefer it if manufacturers were able to pre-install Firefox, I'm also worried that we may discover the cure to be worse than the disease.
- krageon 8y ago
  Running it without GApps is by and large a pretty enjoyable experience, provided you don't use the communication apps that seem to break/work like ass if they are not present (signal for example, while technically available without google services framework will just never work right). Really the only ones that come close to working right are Telegram (although it will never shut up about google services and "not running without them", it will run just fine) and the builtin SMS app. Email can be procured reasonably well and I have a sizeable library of games that I got from old humble bundles (back when they were actually good) that are fairly enjoyable.

pdw 8y ago

The Wikipedia article on this case is much more informative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google > In their Statement of Objections, the European Commission accused Google of the breach of EU antitrust rules in three ways: > - by requiring mobile manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to license certain Google proprietary apps; > - by preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code; > - by giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.

ravenstine 8y ago
> by requiring mobile manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google Chrome browser It's like 1998 all over again.
- mankash666 8y ago
  I'd argue not. Microsoft required payment for licensing the OS, Google doesn't. It's patently unfair for Google the invest in most of the R&D got everything Android and not even expect a return.
  - polskibus 8y ago
    Not requiring a license fee makes it worse for competitors than a paid license fee, doesn't it? Going for the free version is one of the strongest business moats, only the richest companies can afford that.
  - detaro 8y ago
    Google requires a fee for the OS customers expect: Android with Google Play. (and has every right to do so!) Both are bundling other products with it, that's the problem.
  - pjmlp 8y ago

lossolo 8y ago

People that do not understand why Android is free and fail to recognize how Google is using its dominating position in one market to dominate other market should read this "Laws of Tech Economics: Commoditize Your Complement" [1] and here HN discussion [2]. [1] https://www.gwern.net/Complement#2 https://www.gwern.net/Complement#2 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047348

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I don't think Google is using its dominant position in one market (search) to dominate other markets in any way other than financial - search pays the bills for developing Android. It's not like Microsoft did back in the day, where dominance in the OS was used to try to force customers to use IE instead of Netscape. Google wasn't trying to dominate phones or tablets. They were trying to prevent Microsoft dominance in those platforms, because they expected that if Microsoft got dominance there, it would use it to drive all the mobile searches to Bing.

mankash666 8y ago

This doesn't make sense. Google gives away it's OS for free. It's the overwhelming major contributor to Android R&D. What's EU's expectation here? Just give it away for free without an expectation of profit? This is in contrast to the old Microsoft that required payments of about $40 for their OS license, and they further restricted browser choice etc. Google is nothing like that, the Android framework and underlying OS is fully open source. There exist non Google forks of Android, Amazon being the most famous. Then there's the whole worshipping of Apple - the most evil, monopolistic company on the planet. Apple's only recourse seems to be their ~17% hardware market share. Though, that's not really the lens to use. When considering the 'mobile paid apps' market, their position immediately moves into Monopoly territory, and in that segment that fuck with the developers and consumers in every way possible.

polskibus 8y ago
It's about whether a market strategy makes it hard to compete for others, not if they make money on it or not, esp. if a company operates on multiple verticals - they offset "free" on one vertical with monopoly on the other (ads, search).
- mankash666 8y ago
  No it's not. You cannot wripe away a monopoly's revenue stream in the name of regulation, you can however ensure that the competition isn't harmed in any way. Google should simply offer a choice - install whatever competitor's service, but license Android for $30. Like Microsoft does and gets away with. Would that seem fair to you? Because that chat eventually gets passed on to the end user.
  - jonathanyc 8y ago
    Antitrust law is for protecting competition; I think you’re confusing it with something else. It’s simply not the case that Microsoft “does and gets away with” antitrust violations because of charging money, this is mentioned in the article. Also, I realized I’ve seen you a lot in these sorts of threads posting fanatically pro-Google stuff, what’s with that?