5 ms·

So, their browser on their operating system has features which only work with their search engine. How does this not violate antitrust laws? Product tying, at t

So, their browser on their operating system has features which only work with their search engine. How does this not violate antitrust laws? Product tying, at the least?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mrep 8y ago
Because you can choose a different phone OS, and you can choose a different browser on that OS. Also, both of those things are open source so you can fork them if you want. How do you think it violates antitrust laws? Do you propose that all companies should be required to make all of their features available on all possible variational usage of their service?
- fyfy18 8y ago
  This is no different than when Microsoft got hit by fines and was forced to include the browser chooser. You were still free to install Firefox or Linux, but the issue was that the defaults on new PCs used Microsoft products, and most people use the default options.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - srtjstjsj 8y ago
    Of course it's different. For 1, what was the market landscape for smartphone websearch in 2009? For 2, The Microsoft decision was the result of complex litigation relating to the specifics of microsoft's position in the market, defining what the "market" even was, and the nature of newly invented web browsers, and the conclusions reached in that trial were quickly disregarded by the prosecutor/government within a few years. There's no bright-line law here.
- realusername 8y ago
  Android has 75% market share, it's not like you can avoid it, they have practically a monopoly. As much as people like Apple here, it's nowhere near the same market share as Android. Also you should put quotes around open-source, AOSP does not run on any real device due to a lot of android parts being private + private drivers. It took me one month to run a custom kernel on my Samsung to get the basic hardware working, it's as far as open source as you can get. Android is a "look but don't touch" kind of open-source.
  - peterwwillis 8y ago
    Back in the day Microsoft actually used the existence of Linux as a legal argument that they could not possibly be a monopoly. The judge didn't buy it.
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      It was mostly Apple and MacOS which were used as the excuse, not Linux. And Microsoft kept both on life support by supporting software for them (e.g. Internet Explorer pre Safari).
  - refoundglory 8y ago
    No, Android is a "you need corporate resources to adapt this" kind of open source.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    You can run Android such as LineageOS without Opengapps perfectly fine. You can also use microG (with or without LineageOS), though that may be against Google ToS.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    Apple does have a significant market share in some advanced economies though. Over 30% in the UK, Japan, Australia & USA.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  IANAL, but the product tying interpretation of US antitrust law specifies that making one product or service a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service can be considered an anticompetitive practice. The "feature" in question in their application was "searching the web". Imagine if they shipped a default e-mail client that only allowed you to use Gmail, and you had to install a separate client to use e-mail with any other e-mail provider. How many people are going to just use Gmail rather than go find some other app and provider? That's an unfair advantage due to product tying. Microsoft bundled IE into Windows 98 in a way that you could not remove. Microsoft argued that, hey, it's just a standard part of an operating system, and you can get something else, what's the big deal. The government didn't buy it. They settled before the government could reach a final ruling about whether this was anticompetitive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)#Microsoft_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)#Microsoft_pro...
  - euyyn 8y ago
    The government didn't buy it because Microsoft threatened OEMs that dared preinstall Netscape in the Windows computers they wanted to sell, among other things.
  - srtjstjsj 8y ago
    > Imagine if they shipped a default e-mail client that only allowed you to use Gmail, and you had to install a separate client to use e-mail with any other e-mail provider. That's how Google Android works now. There originally was a generic email app, but Google quickly replaced it with Gmail early on.
    - slavik81 8y ago
      The app may be called gmail, but it works just as well with my hotmail account as it does with my gmail account.
  - exikyut 8y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17489605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17489605
notatoad 8y ago
the handset vendor (the actual customer of android) can change the search provider to use their own implementation, as evidenced by the many that do exactly that. Additionally, the end user can use any search application they prefer, and many exist. despite a single commit indicating that the google search engine is required for some feature somewhere in the OS, the reality of the situation is that android is not tied specifically to any search implementation.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  You don't have to completely exclude all other options to have an unfair, anti-competitive position. Often it's just a matter of using your position in one market to push out other competitors in another market. Monopoly and anti-competition are not mutually inclusive, but the latter can lead to the former.
saalweachter 8y ago
The short, cynical answer is "because no one cares". This sort of thing isn't like a speeding ticket where there's a cop just sitting by the side of the road looking for someone to give a ticket to. The infamous Microsoft/IE case happened because someone, Netscape, was unhappy enough about the event (and had the resources...) to make a compelling enough case to convince a court there was anti-competitive behavior that was causing harm. No one has made such a case for this Cowardly commit, so...
pdw 8y ago
In short, it does, and Google is currently fighting a $7.4 billion EU fine for these shenanigans: "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."
GeekyBear 8y ago
The EU Competition Commission is said to be on the verge of issuing a multi-billion dollar penalty for this behavior. >Google could face a record penalty this month from European regulators for forcing its search and Web-browsing tools on the makers of Android-equipped smartphones and other devices, potentially resulting in major changes to the world’s most widely deployed mobile operating system. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/09/google-may-have-make-major-changes-android-response-forthcoming-fine-europe/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3a14955ec498 https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/09/google-...

So, their browser on their operating system has features which only work with their search engine. How does this not violate antitrust laws? Product tying, at the least?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

mrep 8y ago

Because you can choose a different phone OS, and you can choose a different browser on that OS. Also, both of those things are open source so you can fork them if you want. How do you think it violates antitrust laws? Do you propose that all companies should be required to make all of their features available on all possible variational usage of their service?

fyfy18 8y ago
This is no different than when Microsoft got hit by fines and was forced to include the browser chooser. You were still free to install Firefox or Linux, but the issue was that the defaults on new PCs used Microsoft products, and most people use the default options.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- srtjstjsj 8y ago
  Of course it's different. For 1, what was the market landscape for smartphone websearch in 2009? For 2, The Microsoft decision was the result of complex litigation relating to the specifics of microsoft's position in the market, defining what the "market" even was, and the nature of newly invented web browsers, and the conclusions reached in that trial were quickly disregarded by the prosecutor/government within a few years. There's no bright-line law here.
realusername 8y ago
Android has 75% market share, it's not like you can avoid it, they have practically a monopoly. As much as people like Apple here, it's nowhere near the same market share as Android. Also you should put quotes around open-source, AOSP does not run on any real device due to a lot of android parts being private + private drivers. It took me one month to run a custom kernel on my Samsung to get the basic hardware working, it's as far as open source as you can get. Android is a "look but don't touch" kind of open-source.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  Back in the day Microsoft actually used the existence of Linux as a legal argument that they could not possibly be a monopoly. The judge didn't buy it.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    It was mostly Apple and MacOS which were used as the excuse, not Linux. And Microsoft kept both on life support by supporting software for them (e.g. Internet Explorer pre Safari).
- refoundglory 8y ago
  No, Android is a "you need corporate resources to adapt this" kind of open source.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  You can run Android such as LineageOS without Opengapps perfectly fine. You can also use microG (with or without LineageOS), though that may be against Google ToS.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  Apple does have a significant market share in some advanced economies though. Over 30% in the UK, Japan, Australia & USA.
peterwwillis 8y ago
IANAL, but the product tying interpretation of US antitrust law specifies that making one product or service a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service can be considered an anticompetitive practice. The "feature" in question in their application was "searching the web". Imagine if they shipped a default e-mail client that only allowed you to use Gmail, and you had to install a separate client to use e-mail with any other e-mail provider. How many people are going to just use Gmail rather than go find some other app and provider? That's an unfair advantage due to product tying. Microsoft bundled IE into Windows 98 in a way that you could not remove. Microsoft argued that, hey, it's just a standard part of an operating system, and you can get something else, what's the big deal. The government didn't buy it. They settled before the government could reach a final ruling about whether this was anticompetitive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)#Microsoft_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)#Microsoft_pro...
- euyyn 8y ago
  The government didn't buy it because Microsoft threatened OEMs that dared preinstall Netscape in the Windows computers they wanted to sell, among other things.
- srtjstjsj 8y ago
  > Imagine if they shipped a default e-mail client that only allowed you to use Gmail, and you had to install a separate client to use e-mail with any other e-mail provider. That's how Google Android works now. There originally was a generic email app, but Google quickly replaced it with Gmail early on.
  - slavik81 8y ago
    The app may be called gmail, but it works just as well with my hotmail account as it does with my gmail account.
- exikyut 8y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17489605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17489605

notatoad 8y ago

the handset vendor (the actual customer of android) can change the search provider to use their own implementation, as evidenced by the many that do exactly that. Additionally, the end user can use any search application they prefer, and many exist. despite a single commit indicating that the google search engine is required for some feature somewhere in the OS, the reality of the situation is that android is not tied specifically to any search implementation.

peterwwillis 8y ago
You don't have to completely exclude all other options to have an unfair, anti-competitive position. Often it's just a matter of using your position in one market to push out other competitors in another market. Monopoly and anti-competition are not mutually inclusive, but the latter can lead to the former.

saalweachter 8y ago

The short, cynical answer is "because no one cares". This sort of thing isn't like a speeding ticket where there's a cop just sitting by the side of the road looking for someone to give a ticket to. The infamous Microsoft/IE case happened because someone, Netscape, was unhappy enough about the event (and had the resources...) to make a compelling enough case to convince a court there was anti-competitive behavior that was causing harm. No one has made such a case for this Cowardly commit, so...

pdw 8y ago

In short, it does, and Google is currently fighting a $7.4 billion EU fine for these shenanigans: "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."

GeekyBear 8y ago

The EU Competition Commission is said to be on the verge of issuing a multi-billion dollar penalty for this behavior. >Google could face a record penalty this month from European regulators for forcing its search and Web-browsing tools on the makers of Android-equipped smartphones and other devices, potentially resulting in major changes to the world’s most widely deployed mobile operating system. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/09/google-may-have-make-major-changes-android-response-forthcoming-fine-europe/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3a14955ec498 https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/09/google-...