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Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
- akie 5y agoSmall change. I'm sure Google will just write it off as "the cost of doing business".
- bjohnson225 5y ago€100M for not allowing the EnelX app (electric car charging infrastructure in Italy) with Android Auto is a significant fine. Even if €100M on its own is not much to Google, it is still an expensive precedent for similar cases in the future.
- varispeed 5y agoIn Italy, the judgements are not a source of law, so this ruling does not mean that a similar situation would have the same outcome in the future.
- TZubiri 5y agoI think some degree of jurisprudence is always present in any legal system. It's the natural law.
- whoisburbansky 5y agoJurisprudence doesn’t necessarily imply a legal system where a legal precedent carries outsize weight, so I don’t quite get what you mean by it being a natural law.
- 1_player 5y agoI don't think the word you're looking for is jurisprudence, which is defined as "legal theory" or "legal philosophy" as opposed to legal practice.
- eru 5y agoYes, but in practice precedence has some informal weight even in civil law systems. (And in the same spirit, precedence can be overridden relatively easily in a common law system, too, the judge just has to find an obscure aspect of the new case that allows her to argue that the old cases don't apply.)
- mdeck_ 5y agoSo, in reality, virtually identical to a common-law (US/UK-style) legal system.
- hrktb 5y agoDoesn’t it at least constitue a data point for future cases, where Google won’t just be able to say “we just don’t hinder competitors, you must be mistaken” and we also get vetted documents on their inner workings and processes that will make the discovery process faster on other cases.
- waheoo 5y agoIt's almost like the government's around the world are waking up to the fact they can actually push back on the ultra mega corps of the world. Or they're seeing weakness in the US and taking their geopolitical shots.
- f6v 5y agoOr they are waking up to the fact they can just grab some cash.
- gverrilla 5y agothis is just pretending and games. it's a novel around something in the periphery, when the center is very stable and established
- oblio 5y agoWhat does your comment mean, in less poetic form?
- gverrilla 5y agoI'm sorry but I can't express myself in a "less poetic form", because this space is not suitable for in-depth conversation and also because I don't have enough domain over the language. There's a book I can recommend though: Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord, 1967.
- icpmoles 5y agoQuick summary: the biggest electricity provider in the country (ENEL) made an app (Juicepass) to find and manage their charging stations across the country. The Android Auto functionality of the app has been rejected by Google for non disclosed "security concerns while driving". The antitrust ruled out it was because Google wanted to sabotage competitor apps to the charging stations finder built-in in the Google Maps app. On top of the fine Google will need to provide the SDK to integrate their app with Android Auto.
- dan-robertson 5y ago> The antitrust ruled out it was because Google wanted to sabotage competitor apps to the charging stations finder built-in in the Google Maps app Should this say “…ruled it was because…”? I can’t figure out the reason for the fine otherwise.
- simonh 5y agoJust to explain for non-native anglophones, I think what they meant was "gave out a rule", but in idiomatic English "ruled something out" means it has been eliminated as a possibility.
- Chris2048 5y agoYep, and to explain further; The first instance of "ruling" in a judicial sense probably derives from rule (i.e dictat/maxim). To "rule out" is to use a ruler to cross a line through something in a written list of items, thereby eliminating it from consideration.
- wccrawford 5y agoBut also in colloquial English, "rule out" means "eliminate by logic". Like, "use the rules to take it out of possibility".
- dan-robertson 5y ago
- idkwhoiam 5y agoWhat a steaming pile of digested waste material. Have they ever thought about fixing their app? There are plenty of Android Auto apps on the store.
- thefz 5y agoThe existence of other Android Auto apps mean nothing. Enel is quite a large company and I am sure it has a lot of people working on its mobile applications. Besides, they are enforcing European law.
- baridbelmedar 5y agoJust because they are big in one particular sector doesn't mean that the app they built didn't have problems (security in this case). This is very likely just a way to squeeze some money from a foreign company.
- hulitu 5y agoSecurity was never a concern for google. There is a lot of malware in Google play. But the interference with their monopoly is a concern for them.
- hulitu 5y agoIt's half true, there are plenty of android auto apps on the store. The majority of them are music playing apps. Navigation apps are not allowed by google. I have 2 cars with android auto and android auto is useless for me because i cannot mirror the phone screen.
- truth_seeker 5y agoHow far fine will help ? who will get benefitted ? how many people really understand ANTITRUST in its entire scope ? IMHO, The market dominance of features provided by big tech companies like google and many other companies which provides something as a service must be consciously evaluated whenever product (and its new releases with new features) hits the market. Big tech companies like google have too much monopoly. Each country deserve their own local vendors who are responsible for creation and operation of platform. Restricting the scope of some technology platform as service especially to a particular nation or even states can help build local jobs, also keeping the sentiments for that region. On international level if someone wants to succeed they must be allowed but should be given limited access in each country/state by the government from very start, so that they don't overpower the local market.
- nradov 5y agoLiechtenstein and Seychelles deserve their own local vendors? Seriously?
- dalbasal 5y agoThe way antitrust is working in recent years is kind of ridiculous. Google in Europe is becoming a rich case study in antitrust meh. You find that adwords engages in a blatant "monopolistic abuse" in some specific sense. In the Adwords EU case for example, Google was both monopsonising (google search) and monopolising search advertising. But, the actual violations are specific, like exclusivity requirements and other technical infractions buried in their take-it-or-leave-it contracts with "partners.^" Google get a fine. They deny culpability. They pay a fine and move on. Whether it's 100m or 2bn doesn't really matter. Google are demonstrably willing to pay far more (eg acquisition, browser kickbacks, etc.) to maintain a monopolistic position. Besides minor tweaks, there's no reason for them to change. What's the point? Antitrust can't be useful as a violation-fine paradigm. These cases/fines don't affect the monopoly or free the market in any useful sense. IMO, we need some way to declare a company "Big" and apply special rules to them. If those rules are onerous, that might create some organic pressure to split and/or help smaller incumbents compete. There is no point to antitrust if its totally reactive, handing out fines for moving violations. The point of antitrust is trust-busting, to affect market structure. The point if to have a competitive market. All the 1990s stuff is playing out. Just like the MSFT case, we see that operating systems, browsers (now app stores) are monopoly prone and that it's a big deal. On the other side, the 90s "portal" concept is fully realized now. In the digital economy, controlling the windows of consumption is everything. None of the costs, all of the profit... literally all in a lot of cases. ^Newspapers didn't have the advantage search partners had in their monopoly claim, because Google doesn't have agreements with them. No contract, no abusive clauses. The take it or leave it offer is "give us your content for free, or go away." Formally, Google isn't even doing business with them.
- oblio 5y ago> IMO, we need some way to declare a company "Big" and apply special rules to them. If those rules are onerous, that might create some organic pressure to split and/or help smaller incumbents compete. Past a point, they should be regulated like an utility.
- dalbasal 5y agoIDK if it's "past a point," but in some cases maybe. I'm torn on that though. EG, what would it actually mean if FB or twitter became "regulated like utilities?" Interoperability? Portability? IMO, these are pretty finicky problems for a regulator. I think it would likely look like the mandated personal data dumps we have today. Some clunky feature that few use, and don't change the structure of the market. Useful transparency, but not really game changing. Regulated equal access? Court-like proceeding to confirm bans? I'm not feeling it. I suspect it will entrench monopolies further. A Telecom or EnergyCo is fundamentally different from a FB or Google. Regulators needed to make sure everyone had access, because it's always more profitable to just exclude certain people/areas. Prices are an issue because infrastructure monopoly. Also because government/regulators typically fund a lot of the capex. There is almost no cost, marginal or fixed, associated with instant messages, shares, likes, links, etc. If Facebook and Twitter folded tomorrow, we would still have plenty of all of these because they are not scarce. Maybe there's a case for cloud computing as a utility, but even here I'm hesitant. Enough with analogies to 19th century monopolies. Platform monopolies should be regulated as platform monopolies, not utilities. New thinking. In any case, google is the perfect target for actual trustbusting. Separate search from adwords and android. Ban default buying. Ban mergers. The old challenge was (eg) trust busting steel without harming the actual production of steel. Today's problem has little to do with production. It does have a lot to do with share prices. Is there really an appetite for turning Alphabet from a $1.5trn company into a $150bn company?
- tester34 5y agoWeekly Google fine Is it even possible to split them?
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- spoonjim 5y agoGood for Italy -- they have no chance of creating a Google, so their best path to tech dollars is a regular cadence of these $100m fines (but not so often that Big Tech exits the Italian market).
- speedgoose 5y agoIf Google leaves the Italian market, Italy could have a chance to create a local Google. Google's scale is huge and they have a lot of products, but a subset of these products, such as tracking, ads, search, emails, and videos, is achievable for a country like Italy in my opinion.
- KMag 5y agoMaybe. I worked at Google on the indexing team from 2006-2010. During that time, I vaguely remember some announcement of a government-funded search engine project in France to beat Google. If I remember correctly, it wasn't the first time France tried a government-funded search engine. I suspect it's more a problem of network effects than it's a problem of money. Google just has so much data at this point that it's really tough to get marginally enough better search results than Google to get a significant number of people to switch. Personally, I use DDG for ideological reasons. I hope competition heats up in the ads and search spaces, but I'm not holding my breath, even with significant government funding. In my time at Google, I also remember being slightly concerned about Cuil. Cuil was started by some ex-Googlers and had some sophisticated machine learning algorithms to find images to attach at the top of most search results pages. They were well-funded and supposedly had a larger corpus than Google. On launch day, Cuil inexplicably attached the image of a porn star with an unrelated name to a journalist's search for his own name. It also had tons other very bizarre choices of images, all inexplicably blamed on scaling issues due to unanticipated demand. Also, at the time that Yahoo shut down its search infrastructure to outsource Bing's search back-end, our internal quality metrics actually showed Yahoo ahead of Bing. I'm sure getting all of that Yahoo traffic to siphon up more behavioral data helped Bing's search results in the long term.
- 5y ago
- hankchinaski 5y agoallegedly, Google did not approve Enel X charging station finder app Juicepass on the Android Auto store due to security and standards concerns. I do not understand why Google did not provide a clear exhaustive explanation on the specifics but just a generic "We have strong standards for the publishing of apps on our Android Auto store". They are not even trying to justify or defend themselves because they don't need to - they will pay the fine and move on.
- 3v1n0 5y agoThey also have to provide a SDK
- PaulHoule 5y agoThey should fine Google Play for something that's wrong with it -- like adding icons for "Google Play Music" and "Google Play Books" just to distract you, waste your time, weaken your mind, and either get you click on an ad. Somehow I have the hardest time finding (i) the real Google Play (app store) and (ii) the search form for apps (Google doesn't want you to search for an app and install it, they'd like to hit your brain with an electromagnetic pulse when you visit the app store and stare at mindless ads with your tongue hanging out the site of your mouth for hours. That is, the strength of the "platform" doesn't matter, just the perception of investors that Google products are still stuffed with ads, the king is on the throne, and such...)
- whoknowswhat11 5y agoThe whole thing is weird because Google makes an example ev charger app design guide available for Android auto
- evidencebased 5y agoThis is a huge reason why China imposes certain rules on foreign corps if they wanted to operate there. The media and politicians makes it all about politics, but it is an entirely reasonable way to deal with foreign mega corps. Local competitors would not survive against something like Google without government protection. 100 mil fine every once in a while is just the cost of doing business for them. How many similar cases have occurred that never went to court?
- gruez 5y ago>Local competitors would not survive against something like Google without government protection So you want them to be protected. In other words, protectionism?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jeroenhd 5y agoNot the parent, but I do, yes. Every country does protectionism in some form, it's the only way to prevent monopolies. Even the United States, where politics are led more by the free market than by citizens, throws around embargoes and regulation when important parts of the economy is threatened. One recent example is the American attempts at sabotaging the new gas line from Russia to the EU. Companies get threatened with embargoes, insurances get cancelled, all to maintain the European dependence on the US energy market. Protectionism protects not only the local economy, but also protects countries from foreign influence. All the major world powers want their own version of important economic and digital infrastructure to protect themselves against the other powers trying to sway public opinion. Google and YouTube are major influences in the world and without an effective ban they will continue to do so. People want convenience above all else, their own long-term interests be damned. Ignoring the threats of a globalised industry benefits no country.
- Tade0 5y agoIn 2018 Google paid more in fines than taxes in the EU. I guess at this point they're so dependable in being an evil corporation that this can be seen as a form of tax.
- holoduke 5y agoA good thing. My business unfortunately rely on the Playstore. Every update we submit I have nightmares about a rejected update or somekind of violation. I am active since the start of the store. On average once every 2 years we have a very serious issue with an app being suspended for a a reason we do not understand. I am lucky to have some ties to people inside Google, otherwise I would probably have lost (no joke) millions.
- fsflover 5y agoPublish your app in F-Droid.
- JI00912 5y agoGood.
- midrus 5y agoWhich for them is like 0,01€ for me.
- elbelcho 5y agoThe contested behaviour can influence the development of e-mobility in a crucial phase ... with possible negative spill-over effects on the growth of electric vehicles Yes, but something tells me Google doesn't give a damn.
- dicomdan 5y agoThis is the app in question: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.enel.mobile.recharge2&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.enel.mobil... Mostly 1 star reviews on it.
- jason0597 5y agoWhat do you wish to imply?
- CountDrewku 5y agoWhy is the EU the only one doing anything about monopolies? I'm tired of useless US politicians letting these massive corporations run our entire country. Break them up already.
- kavalg 5y agoBecause it looks corporations are the government. I really like the idea of democracy, but it looks like politics and democracy are two very different things. Actually I would love to see some usable digital democracy project coming out. I imagine things like: - always having the possibility for a direct voting for e.g. a new law/regulation - a (deep) hierarchy of delegates/representatives on a per topic basis - immediate retraction of trust/support from a representative - maybe some micro monetary support for representatives
- bgorman 5y agoBecause none of the big tech companies are based in Europe, so there is limited political downside to going after them.
- TheAceOfHearts 5y agoI keep hearing claims about breaking up these large tech companies, but how do you envision that should or would look like? Do you know of any good resources where I could read up more on the topic? Which companies would this apply to? Should Apple's vertical integration be disallowed and broken up? How would you split up Twitter?
- Closi 5y ago> Should Apple's vertical integration be disallowed and broken up? Personally I think there are specific use-cases that should be identified and banned in competition law - for instance the issue here (which could be legislated against) is when companies become a marketplace/platform that they 'sell' their own services on, which their competitors also need to use their services to effectively compete. It's the dual role of being both a marketplace and a seller on that marketplace at the same time that produces conflicts of interest and market abuse potential. Examples (on top of the Google example): * Apple vs Spotify - Apple could retain 100% of margin on their music subscription service, while Spotify their competitor had to give away 30% of their margin to Apple if purchased via App Store (which was mandated). * Amazon vs Marketplace Sellers - Amazon encourages other retailers to sell on their platform, but secretly spies on their data to understand if they should directly compete and undercut them. This isn't the only thing that requires specific legislation - and other parts I personally think should be better-legislated include: * Use of one product to entrench another non-connected product's market position (e.g. Chrome -> Google Ads is an issue because the dominance of Browser means that they also get dominance of online search, because they can track better than the competition). * Use of market-power to ensure people offer the lowest cost on your platform, despite fees (Booking.com, Valve, Amazon).
- yupper32 5y agoRegardless of the merit of this particular fine, what happens when every country realizes they can just arbitrarily fine huge international companies to fund their countries? In theory all 50 countries that Google has offices could fine them $100M - $10B based on whatever their laws are at the time, regardless of how ridiculous the laws are. It doesn't even have to be truly bad stuff. It could be something like, a country doesn't like that Google didn't censor something worldwide. It seems like we need a more centralized way to deal with this.
- this_was_posted 5y agoGiven that many countries are willing to give these same companies huge tax breaks I don’t think the power balance is biased too much towards countries.
- joering2 5y agoSlightly OT but still Google related - you did hear horrible stories of Google having close to zero customer support when it comes to their free products, but you kind of hoped it will be somewhat different with Google Suite, since well.. you are a paid customer? Well, today I'm here to tell you that after 3 months of back-and-forth thru their customer support ticketing system, I finally called my bank and asked them to file a chargeback dispute and give me back my $18 for 3 months worth of Gsuite email account. Yes, we are talking about $6 per month. But the amount of crap I witnessed thru their "customer support" is astonishing and someone should write a book about it! I was literally asked for the same questions over and over again with different reps. I was asked questions, I answered then 3 days of silence so that next rep will ask same questions. Forwarded previous questions - 3 days later another rep asks exactly the same. My favorite was argument that you cannot answer question under the question we ask - you have to add a colon ":" and then answer question next. "We cannot accept answers if you use your Enter key answering question". Unbelievable. One of the most valuable company on the planet. Fuck Google! And today, I finally have switched to Duck Duck. Even If I have to force myself to like the differences, I will not go back to using Google. /rant
- brutal_chaos_ 5y agothat's like a well off person eating a cheap meal at McDonalds. Fines are for show (when it comes to corporations). It's high time we start making people within companies responsible for the actions they take. The company asked you to do something against the law/etc. Report it. Oh, you weren't taught the laws? that's a failure of the company not preparing you for the job. All higher ups should be personally fined or jailed depending on the act, you should be fined or jailed with a reduced sentence (ignorance of the law isn't a defense). And you should be able to sue the company for damages and lack of training. These are wild ideas, I know, I'm just hoping for more personal responsibility and less hiding behind the company.