4 ms·

This is crazy, Google spends billions on Android. They are not blocking you from installing other search engines (now that would be anti competitive). I think

This is crazy, Google spends billions on Android. They are not blocking you from installing other search engines (now that would be anti competitive). I think it's kinda crazy that the EU is forcing them to show other search engines to begin with. Only fair that those search engines pay a solid contribution to android development to be featured. Reminds me of the Microsoft/IE days. At the end of the day better products came along and replaced IE. Showing competitors doesn't solve anything in this case.

whalabi 7y ago
They're unfairly abusing their dominant market share (75%?) to harm competing search engines, which is not allowed in EU law. Nothing crazy about it.
- Buraksr 7y ago
  I do see tschellenbach's point. Way back when google seemingly bought android to be more able to compete in search [0], and now it has been good business for them even back in 2010 android showed real promise in terms of profit [1]. So Google spends a lot of time and man hours building the most popular OS. And I can relate to google in some weird way, for not really wanting to put competitors as default options. Now as tschellenbach says, > "Google spends billions on Android. They are not blocking you from installing other search engines" if they did that, they would get a clear anti-trust violation I hope. Reading up on some history we see this quote from Wikipedia [2](The best source): "Compared to the European Decision against Microsoft, the DOJ case is focused less on interoperability and more on predatory strategies and market barriers to entry." If history is good president, and if Android has interoperability with other search engines and there are not predatory strategies then it should be fine right? I think the word harm, as whalabi uses it, is too ambiguous here, having a better product 'Harms' your competitor in some way, but we wouldn't file anti-trust for this reason. The question is more like "is google behaving in a predatory manner using android". Looking at the US case, I would be tempted to say no, after all IE/Edge are defaults on windows, and this is fine so long as those two aforementioned conditions are maintained. But defaults are powerful, powerful things. Bing has come a long way almost solely because of the power of defaults [3], so maybe it should be more regulated in this regard. 0- https://www.cnet.com/news/google-buys-android/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-buys-android/ 1- https://venturebeat.com/2010/10/27/google-exec-android-was-best-deal-ever/ https://venturebeat.com/2010/10/27/google-exec-android-was-b... 2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... 3- https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-q4-2018-bing-search-business-revenue-grows/ https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-q4-2018-bing-search-busine...
tannhaeuser 7y ago
Arguably, the EU's rule imposed on MS to link to competing browsers has had a profound impact. In 2002, IE totally dominated the browser market, whereas in 2019 IE doesn't exist anymore as an autonomous product/code base.
- anonygler 7y ago
  Chrome and Firefox spread by word of mouth, not because of the EU mandate. Lay people use what their friends and family recommend, or they take what looks familiar.

whalabi 7y ago

They're unfairly abusing their dominant market share (75%?) to harm competing search engines, which is not allowed in EU law. Nothing crazy about it.

Buraksr 7y ago
I do see tschellenbach's point. Way back when google seemingly bought android to be more able to compete in search [0], and now it has been good business for them even back in 2010 android showed real promise in terms of profit [1]. So Google spends a lot of time and man hours building the most popular OS. And I can relate to google in some weird way, for not really wanting to put competitors as default options. Now as tschellenbach says, > "Google spends billions on Android. They are not blocking you from installing other search engines" if they did that, they would get a clear anti-trust violation I hope. Reading up on some history we see this quote from Wikipedia [2](The best source): "Compared to the European Decision against Microsoft, the DOJ case is focused less on interoperability and more on predatory strategies and market barriers to entry." If history is good president, and if Android has interoperability with other search engines and there are not predatory strategies then it should be fine right? I think the word harm, as whalabi uses it, is too ambiguous here, having a better product 'Harms' your competitor in some way, but we wouldn't file anti-trust for this reason. The question is more like "is google behaving in a predatory manner using android". Looking at the US case, I would be tempted to say no, after all IE/Edge are defaults on windows, and this is fine so long as those two aforementioned conditions are maintained. But defaults are powerful, powerful things. Bing has come a long way almost solely because of the power of defaults [3], so maybe it should be more regulated in this regard. 0- https://www.cnet.com/news/google-buys-android/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-buys-android/ 1- https://venturebeat.com/2010/10/27/google-exec-android-was-best-deal-ever/ https://venturebeat.com/2010/10/27/google-exec-android-was-b... 2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... 3- https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-q4-2018-bing-search-business-revenue-grows/ https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-q4-2018-bing-search-busine...

tannhaeuser 7y ago

Arguably, the EU's rule imposed on MS to link to competing browsers has had a profound impact. In 2002, IE totally dominated the browser market, whereas in 2019 IE doesn't exist anymore as an autonomous product/code base.

anonygler 7y ago
Chrome and Firefox spread by word of mouth, not because of the EU mandate. Lay people use what their friends and family recommend, or they take what looks familiar.