5 ms·

I don't quite get the last sentence. > who could look at how Europe treats Android and come to the conclusion that Google made the right decision by being open

I don't quite get the last sentence. > who could look at how Europe treats Android and come to the conclusion that Google made the right decision by being open? Google was fined on antitrust grounds. I don't see which direction to leap to make that sentence relevant to them being fined. From the EU’s competition commissioner > Fine of €4,34 bn to @Google for 3 types of illegal restrictions on the use of Android. In this way it has cemented the dominance of its search engine. Denying rivals a chance to innovate and compete on the merits. It’s illegal under EU antitrust rules. @Google now has to stop it

Aunche 8y ago
Android is free, which unequivocally is a net positive for consumers and smartphone manufacturers. Google places some terms of use to their software and suddenly they're being "anti-competitive." Had they made Android a walled garden like Apple, they wouldn't have been fined.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Only if they're the only ones using Android. Regardless of how you want to complain about this, the fact of the matter is, they're abusing their monopoly to put additional restrictions on OEMs, which is a big no-no.
- shady-lady 8y ago
  > Had they made Android a walled garden like Apple, they wouldn't have been fined....Android is free, which unequivocally is a net positive for consumers It's unequivocally a positive if they play by the rules. They fell foul of Europe(who was protecting it's consumers). Google's not a charity and made the choices they made to get to where they are. Making Android free ensured they quickly became relevant in the emerging mobile market without having to invest massive amounts in designing/making/manufacturing devices (alongside the risks), if doing Apple way. Or if they went the MS way and tried to sell a closed source OS to device manufacturers, those device manufacturers may instead have chosen a different, more polished OS from a company who had more experience/better reputation in that field. > Google places some terms of use to their software and suddenly they're being "anti-competitive." You can drop the scare quotes, it's not "anti-competitive", it's just anti-competitive.
  - Aunche 8y ago
    > Google's not a charity and made the choices they made to get to where they are. That's my point. They chose the option where everyone wins the most, especially themselves. The alternatives would have set the smartphone industry back several years as Google would struggle to make phones and phone manufactures would struggle to make a halfway-decent operating system. Google's policies are "anti-competitive" in the same sense that charging money for their operating system or enforcing copyright is "anti-competitive." In one case, you're forcing companies to pay for your product. In the other case, you're forcing the companies to follow a set of rules to use your product.
    - shady-lady 8y ago
      > phone manufactures would struggle to make a halfway-decent operating system They'd have bought from one of the other mobile OS vendors(Symbian, MS) or made their own (Nokia w/Maemo). It could be argued that Google distributing Android for free(so as to ensure the continued dominance/inclusion of Google Search) did set the smartphone industry back. Who the hell wants to compete against free? Even more so when that "free" is coming from a XXX billion dollar company. Which is maybe why MS gave up on mobile OS, or Symbian no longer exists or Maemo. > you're forcing the companies to follow a set of rules to use your product ...and Europe found those rules broke the existing law.
  - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
    On Android, I can install whatever I want, replace whatever I want. Hell, I can even install another App store if I wanted. On iOS, you can't do any of that. How is that not infinitely more anti-competitive? Somehow licensing software to other manufacturers makes you more anti-competitive then owning the entire pipeline?
    - mcphage 8y ago
      > Somehow licensing software to other manufacturers makes you more anti-competitive then owning the entire pipeline? Yes, giving out a product for free to kill off existing competitors and prevent potential competitors from gaining a foothold is anti-competitive.
- stale2002 8y ago
  Apple put restrictions on phones that it manufactured, google put restrictions on phones other people manufactured. I don't support either, but there is a clear reason why what google did got caught by anti trust laws.
  - mrep 8y ago
    Google got caught because their OS crossed the >50% market share in 2011 (That is literally the definition for monopoly that the EU used in their fine because the fine specifically charges back to 2011).
- scarface74 8y ago
  One of those terms of use was that manufacturers couldn’t make competing phones that used non Google approved forks. How is that any better than what MS did back in the day?
solarkraft 8y ago
> Denying rivals a chance to innovate and compete on the merits Apple consistently gives its apps more permissions than normal developers they get. They also reject apps that interfere with business fields they are in/eyeing.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Name one....
  - rhodysurf 8y ago
    Their apps are free to use private APIs and other devs are banned from using them
    - scarface74 8y ago
      I keep hearing this use of “private APIs” that Microsoft and Apple use and think it’s some evil plot. This how software engineering works. If I have a publicly released module, I define a public methods that are my interface and private methods that my interface uses. Of course as the implementator I’m going to have “private APIs” that only I use. In the next release, I might change the entire underlying implementation get rid of private methods, etc. but still not change the public api. You as a developer shouldn’t depend on “private apis” and Apple should have no obligation not to break apps that depend on them. To be even more blunt. There is no such thing as a “private API”. The Application Programmers Interface is the published spec that developers should use. By definition, if it’s private, it’s not an “API”.

Aunche 8y ago

Android is free, which unequivocally is a net positive for consumers and smartphone manufacturers. Google places some terms of use to their software and suddenly they're being "anti-competitive." Had they made Android a walled garden like Apple, they wouldn't have been fined.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
Only if they're the only ones using Android. Regardless of how you want to complain about this, the fact of the matter is, they're abusing their monopoly to put additional restrictions on OEMs, which is a big no-no.
shady-lady 8y ago
> Had they made Android a walled garden like Apple, they wouldn't have been fined....Android is free, which unequivocally is a net positive for consumers It's unequivocally a positive if they play by the rules. They fell foul of Europe(who was protecting it's consumers). Google's not a charity and made the choices they made to get to where they are. Making Android free ensured they quickly became relevant in the emerging mobile market without having to invest massive amounts in designing/making/manufacturing devices (alongside the risks), if doing Apple way. Or if they went the MS way and tried to sell a closed source OS to device manufacturers, those device manufacturers may instead have chosen a different, more polished OS from a company who had more experience/better reputation in that field. > Google places some terms of use to their software and suddenly they're being "anti-competitive." You can drop the scare quotes, it's not "anti-competitive", it's just anti-competitive.
- Aunche 8y ago
  > Google's not a charity and made the choices they made to get to where they are. That's my point. They chose the option where everyone wins the most, especially themselves. The alternatives would have set the smartphone industry back several years as Google would struggle to make phones and phone manufactures would struggle to make a halfway-decent operating system. Google's policies are "anti-competitive" in the same sense that charging money for their operating system or enforcing copyright is "anti-competitive." In one case, you're forcing companies to pay for your product. In the other case, you're forcing the companies to follow a set of rules to use your product.
  - shady-lady 8y ago
    > phone manufactures would struggle to make a halfway-decent operating system They'd have bought from one of the other mobile OS vendors(Symbian, MS) or made their own (Nokia w/Maemo). It could be argued that Google distributing Android for free(so as to ensure the continued dominance/inclusion of Google Search) did set the smartphone industry back. Who the hell wants to compete against free? Even more so when that "free" is coming from a XXX billion dollar company. Which is maybe why MS gave up on mobile OS, or Symbian no longer exists or Maemo. > you're forcing the companies to follow a set of rules to use your product ...and Europe found those rules broke the existing law.
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
  On Android, I can install whatever I want, replace whatever I want. Hell, I can even install another App store if I wanted. On iOS, you can't do any of that. How is that not infinitely more anti-competitive? Somehow licensing software to other manufacturers makes you more anti-competitive then owning the entire pipeline?
  - mcphage 8y ago
    > Somehow licensing software to other manufacturers makes you more anti-competitive then owning the entire pipeline? Yes, giving out a product for free to kill off existing competitors and prevent potential competitors from gaining a foothold is anti-competitive.
stale2002 8y ago
Apple put restrictions on phones that it manufactured, google put restrictions on phones other people manufactured. I don't support either, but there is a clear reason why what google did got caught by anti trust laws.
- mrep 8y ago
  Google got caught because their OS crossed the >50% market share in 2011 (That is literally the definition for monopoly that the EU used in their fine because the fine specifically charges back to 2011).
scarface74 8y ago
One of those terms of use was that manufacturers couldn’t make competing phones that used non Google approved forks. How is that any better than what MS did back in the day?

solarkraft 8y ago

> Denying rivals a chance to innovate and compete on the merits Apple consistently gives its apps more permissions than normal developers they get. They also reject apps that interfere with business fields they are in/eyeing.

scarface74 8y ago
Name one....
- rhodysurf 8y ago
  Their apps are free to use private APIs and other devs are banned from using them
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I keep hearing this use of “private APIs” that Microsoft and Apple use and think it’s some evil plot. This how software engineering works. If I have a publicly released module, I define a public methods that are my interface and private methods that my interface uses. Of course as the implementator I’m going to have “private APIs” that only I use. In the next release, I might change the entire underlying implementation get rid of private methods, etc. but still not change the public api. You as a developer shouldn’t depend on “private apis” and Apple should have no obligation not to break apps that depend on them. To be even more blunt. There is no such thing as a “private API”. The Application Programmers Interface is the published spec that developers should use. By definition, if it’s private, it’s not an “API”.