20 ms·

Google “bought off Samsung” to limit app store competition, 36 states allege

222 points by nabla9 5y ago

LatteLazy 5y ago
Careful taking lawsuit claims seriously. Especially then the claim drops from doing X to "attempting X" by paragraph 2 and by paragraph 6 is just being "willing" to attempt X.
- resoluteteeth 5y ago
  The actual complaint is linked in the article if you don't like Are Technica's writing.
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    I'm just saying, title doesn't match content doesn't match actual complaint...
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      It might be better if you contact Ars Technica's editors instead of sound off about it on HN.
      - LatteLazy 5y ago
        You think they're more likely to listen given I've already been flagged by HN circle jerk?
      - gruez 5y ago
        What type of response is this? "if there are any inaccuracies send them to the editor rather than make a comment"? Adding a comment to inform other readers seems like the correct thing to do and happens fairly often on other comment sections.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  All of the phrasing you take issue with is directly from the linked complaint. The complaint flatly alleges Google “bought off Samsung” (as quoted in the headline) and that Google was both willing to attempt to buy off Samsung and did indeed attempt to do so. They are the logical order of events, no? I can’t have bought someone off without first having attempted to buy them off and before that having been willing to buy them off.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    The point I think OP was making is that you can say anything with a reasonable evidentiary basis in a complaint. (And some lawyers don't bother with the evidentiary basis part—see the post-election lawsuits that are being sanctioned for just that.) It's not about whether the language is in the article or the legal document; the legal document itself is merely a lawyer saying something that is in their client's interest.
zibzab 5y ago
This is such a BS lawsuit. It would be so much better for consumers if they had instead looked into googles firebase and play services shenanigans.
- paulgb 5y ago
  What are the Firebase shenanigans you refer to? First I’ve heard of it but I’m interested.
  - swiley 5y ago
    I'd imagine it's something like iOS where you don't get battery friendly push notifications without using services from the OS vendor and there's no way for the user to select a 3rd party service instead.
    - seized 5y ago
      Which is fine for most users. I don't want every app doing its own inefficient push/pull notifications and tanking my battery, and I am as pro open source/etc/etc as most here.
      - swiley 5y ago
        The result of this is that every app does do inefficient notifications because in many cases it has no access to an external (to the app) notification service on the phone. Just another crappy smartphone OS feature that works fine on OSes where the developers don't want to control every aspect of the device.
      - asddubs 5y ago
        Well, it doesn't have to be a binary choice between that and google offering it. There could be an OS API where you can hotswap who actually delivers those notifications. Right now I believe the google server actually gets hardcoded into the apps using it.
- tyingq 5y ago
deregulateMed 5y ago
After my S5, an SSD, and a Samsung TV, I've learned that Samsung delivers medium/low quality products at high prices through relentless marketing. Any company that needs to advertise as much as Samsung/Apple/Jeep/Nintendo should be cause for skepticism.
- tyleo 5y ago
  You lost me at Samsung/Apple/Jeep/Nintendo. I’d definitely put Apple in the top tier of phone and laptop quality. Especially w.r.t laptops, the majority of Windows devices seem comparatively low quality. I’m not sure about their other products but I also don’t see them advertised as much. Similarly with Nintendo, they seem to deliver consistently higher quality than competitors. They may not be as fast but they last for years and deliver equal or more enjoyment at a lower price point. A product is more than it’s specs.
  - deregulateMed 5y ago
    I could see where you were coming from because Apple doesn't offer budget hardware and it's easy to mistakenly compare a $1000 laptop with a $500 laptop that doesn't have a video card. But Nintendo is notorious for releasing low quality stuff with their IP skinned on it. A product isn't more than it's quality metrics, if you believe so, I highly recommend taking a marketing class.
    - roblabla 5y ago
      > But Nintendo is notorious for releasing low quality stuff with their IP skinned on it. Nintendo is also widely praised for consistently releasing innovative gaming platforms at fair prices. And that's what they tend to market and invest in heavily - I've never seen an advertisement for any of their low-quality cash-grab toys (which, yeah, they do exist, and they do suck...). > A product isn't more than it's quality metrics, if you believe so, I highly recommend taking a marketing class. OP's claim was that nintendo's product are low-quality, sold at high-price, thanks to relentless marketing. But the products being heavily marketed by Nintendo do tend to be high-quality (for instance, The Switch, a portable console that can be used comfortably enough as a home console, with several innovative input methods and a fairly wide range of high-quality games). If you purely look at the hardware specs, it may seem like a low-quality product, but that's not the correct quality metric to use in this case.
post_break 5y ago
If true it makes their smart watch joint venture interesting. Did google force samsung to stop using tizen on their smart watches? Pay them a large sum of money to get wearOS back in the game?
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  Most of Samsung's seemingly odd back and forth antics can be explained by realizing that: Samsung is the manufacturer most capable of forking Android and telling Google to shove it, and that most of their product development has been making sure that it's possible to do so (Galaxy Store, Bixby, Tizen watches, etc.) And that Google, knowing Samsung has the brand loyalty and wide userbase to devastate Android's market share, is in a constant effort to pay Samsung to stop pushing them away. So they built competitors to Google's product library, and then Google pays them to push a Google product anyways, and then they build a competitor to the next Google product, and wait for the check from Google for them to shelve it... Through this back and forth, Samsung both ends up with a competitive ecosystem to Google ready-to-go if they need it, and an extremely lucrative pile of concessions from Google that Google would've preferred to not have to give them.
  - bythckr 5y ago
    I feel that the software products & services that Samsung builds is half-baked. It might be a pressure tactic to ensure Google keeps paying. Also, I am wonder what happened of Samsung & Microsoft plans of Samsung shelving its app & services for Microsoft. I feel that was the "real motivation" for Google to start paying. Google needs to be challenged for an improvement in Android space. They should stop rushing in half baked stuff and instead work on releasing reliable & well tested products. As a person that actively used android, iOS, Linux, Windows & Mac, Apple's stuffs just work and it's high time the competition catches up. As for Android, we need to have flavour / custom ROMs that is 100% degoogled and with proper alternatives. Ubuntu, Microsoft & LinageOS all need to up their game and get more people involved.
    - selestify 5y ago
rob74 5y ago
> [...] which Samsung did in 2018 when it partnered with Epic to launch Fortnite exclusively on the Galaxy Store. [...] Samsung apparently pursued other exclusives with “popular” app developers [...] So an alternative app store provided by the largest maker of Android phones, which pursues exclusive apps that will then only be available for Samsung phones, is supposed to be good for competition?
FridayoLeary 5y ago
Hope they wont fudge it like the FTC did with Facebook.
throwaway1777 5y ago
38 states is enough for a constitutional amendment. Makes you wonder.
- tinalumfoil 5y ago
  It's a much higher bar to ratify a constitutional amendment than to sue Google.
  - gunapologist99 5y ago
    And then there would be other actual Constitutional issues to deal with, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder#Constitutional_bans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder#Constitution...
    - mullingitover 5y ago
      If you manage to herd all the necessary cats and actually amend the Constitution, you don't have to worry about conflicts - that's the whole point of doing an amendment, you're changing the Constitution. Only laws can conflict with the Constitution.
  - throwaway1777 5y ago
    Agreed. Mainly I think it’s interesting that we can get that many states to come together on anything. Generally the red/blue divide is very strong.
    - 1123581321 5y ago
      States agree on many things. You can see some of them with these kinds of search queries. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22all+50+states+agree%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22all+50+states+agree%22 They wouldn’t have nearly as much agreement if each was presented as a constitutional amendment, of course.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dang 5y ago
Recent and related: More than 30 states sue Google over 'extravagant' fees in Play store - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27768127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27768127 - July 2021 (105 comments)
Lammy 5y ago
This article is missing a huge part of the story. Google weren’t scared of just a competing app store but of Samsung replacing Android itself with their own Tizen OS. The Galaxy Store was just the consumer bridge to that possibility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen
- aejnsn 5y ago
  Yessir. This exactly.

222 points by nabla9 5y ago

Careful taking lawsuit claims seriously. Especially then the claim drops from doing X to "attempting X" by paragraph 2 and by paragraph 6 is just being "willing" to attempt X.

resoluteteeth 5y ago
The actual complaint is linked in the article if you don't like Are Technica's writing.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  I'm just saying, title doesn't match content doesn't match actual complaint...
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    It might be better if you contact Ars Technica's editors instead of sound off about it on HN.
    - LatteLazy 5y ago
      You think they're more likely to listen given I've already been flagged by HN circle jerk?
    - gruez 5y ago
      What type of response is this? "if there are any inaccuracies send them to the editor rather than make a comment"? Adding a comment to inform other readers seems like the correct thing to do and happens fairly often on other comment sections.
elliekelly 5y ago
All of the phrasing you take issue with is directly from the linked complaint. The complaint flatly alleges Google “bought off Samsung” (as quoted in the headline) and that Google was both willing to attempt to buy off Samsung and did indeed attempt to do so. They are the logical order of events, no? I can’t have bought someone off without first having attempted to buy them off and before that having been willing to buy them off.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  The point I think OP was making is that you can say anything with a reasonable evidentiary basis in a complaint. (And some lawyers don't bother with the evidentiary basis part—see the post-election lawsuits that are being sanctioned for just that.) It's not about whether the language is in the article or the legal document; the legal document itself is merely a lawyer saying something that is in their client's interest.

zibzab 5y ago

This is such a BS lawsuit. It would be so much better for consumers if they had instead looked into googles firebase and play services shenanigans.

paulgb 5y ago
What are the Firebase shenanigans you refer to? First I’ve heard of it but I’m interested.
- swiley 5y ago
  I'd imagine it's something like iOS where you don't get battery friendly push notifications without using services from the OS vendor and there's no way for the user to select a 3rd party service instead.
  - seized 5y ago
    Which is fine for most users. I don't want every app doing its own inefficient push/pull notifications and tanking my battery, and I am as pro open source/etc/etc as most here.
    - swiley 5y ago
      The result of this is that every app does do inefficient notifications because in many cases it has no access to an external (to the app) notification service on the phone. Just another crappy smartphone OS feature that works fine on OSes where the developers don't want to control every aspect of the device.
    - asddubs 5y ago
      Well, it doesn't have to be a binary choice between that and google offering it. There could be an OS API where you can hotswap who actually delivers those notifications. Right now I believe the google server actually gets hardcoded into the apps using it.
tyingq 5y ago

deregulateMed 5y ago

After my S5, an SSD, and a Samsung TV, I've learned that Samsung delivers medium/low quality products at high prices through relentless marketing. Any company that needs to advertise as much as Samsung/Apple/Jeep/Nintendo should be cause for skepticism.

tyleo 5y ago
You lost me at Samsung/Apple/Jeep/Nintendo. I’d definitely put Apple in the top tier of phone and laptop quality. Especially w.r.t laptops, the majority of Windows devices seem comparatively low quality. I’m not sure about their other products but I also don’t see them advertised as much. Similarly with Nintendo, they seem to deliver consistently higher quality than competitors. They may not be as fast but they last for years and deliver equal or more enjoyment at a lower price point. A product is more than it’s specs.
- deregulateMed 5y ago
  I could see where you were coming from because Apple doesn't offer budget hardware and it's easy to mistakenly compare a $1000 laptop with a $500 laptop that doesn't have a video card. But Nintendo is notorious for releasing low quality stuff with their IP skinned on it. A product isn't more than it's quality metrics, if you believe so, I highly recommend taking a marketing class.
  - roblabla 5y ago
    > But Nintendo is notorious for releasing low quality stuff with their IP skinned on it. Nintendo is also widely praised for consistently releasing innovative gaming platforms at fair prices. And that's what they tend to market and invest in heavily - I've never seen an advertisement for any of their low-quality cash-grab toys (which, yeah, they do exist, and they do suck...). > A product isn't more than it's quality metrics, if you believe so, I highly recommend taking a marketing class. OP's claim was that nintendo's product are low-quality, sold at high-price, thanks to relentless marketing. But the products being heavily marketed by Nintendo do tend to be high-quality (for instance, The Switch, a portable console that can be used comfortably enough as a home console, with several innovative input methods and a fairly wide range of high-quality games). If you purely look at the hardware specs, it may seem like a low-quality product, but that's not the correct quality metric to use in this case.

post_break 5y ago

If true it makes their smart watch joint venture interesting. Did google force samsung to stop using tizen on their smart watches? Pay them a large sum of money to get wearOS back in the game?

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
Most of Samsung's seemingly odd back and forth antics can be explained by realizing that: Samsung is the manufacturer most capable of forking Android and telling Google to shove it, and that most of their product development has been making sure that it's possible to do so (Galaxy Store, Bixby, Tizen watches, etc.) And that Google, knowing Samsung has the brand loyalty and wide userbase to devastate Android's market share, is in a constant effort to pay Samsung to stop pushing them away. So they built competitors to Google's product library, and then Google pays them to push a Google product anyways, and then they build a competitor to the next Google product, and wait for the check from Google for them to shelve it... Through this back and forth, Samsung both ends up with a competitive ecosystem to Google ready-to-go if they need it, and an extremely lucrative pile of concessions from Google that Google would've preferred to not have to give them.
- bythckr 5y ago
  I feel that the software products & services that Samsung builds is half-baked. It might be a pressure tactic to ensure Google keeps paying. Also, I am wonder what happened of Samsung & Microsoft plans of Samsung shelving its app & services for Microsoft. I feel that was the "real motivation" for Google to start paying. Google needs to be challenged for an improvement in Android space. They should stop rushing in half baked stuff and instead work on releasing reliable & well tested products. As a person that actively used android, iOS, Linux, Windows & Mac, Apple's stuffs just work and it's high time the competition catches up. As for Android, we need to have flavour / custom ROMs that is 100% degoogled and with proper alternatives. Ubuntu, Microsoft & LinageOS all need to up their game and get more people involved.
  - selestify 5y ago

rob74 5y ago

> [...] which Samsung did in 2018 when it partnered with Epic to launch Fortnite exclusively on the Galaxy Store. [...] Samsung apparently pursued other exclusives with “popular” app developers [...] So an alternative app store provided by the largest maker of Android phones, which pursues exclusive apps that will then only be available for Samsung phones, is supposed to be good for competition?

FridayoLeary 5y ago

Hope they wont fudge it like the FTC did with Facebook.

throwaway1777 5y ago

38 states is enough for a constitutional amendment. Makes you wonder.

tinalumfoil 5y ago
It's a much higher bar to ratify a constitutional amendment than to sue Google.
- gunapologist99 5y ago
  And then there would be other actual Constitutional issues to deal with, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder#Constitutional_bans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder#Constitution...
  - mullingitover 5y ago
    If you manage to herd all the necessary cats and actually amend the Constitution, you don't have to worry about conflicts - that's the whole point of doing an amendment, you're changing the Constitution. Only laws can conflict with the Constitution.
- throwaway1777 5y ago
  Agreed. Mainly I think it’s interesting that we can get that many states to come together on anything. Generally the red/blue divide is very strong.
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    States agree on many things. You can see some of them with these kinds of search queries. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22all+50+states+agree%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22all+50+states+agree%22 They wouldn’t have nearly as much agreement if each was presented as a constitutional amendment, of course.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dang 5y ago

Recent and related: More than 30 states sue Google over 'extravagant' fees in Play store - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27768127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27768127 - July 2021 (105 comments)

Lammy 5y ago

This article is missing a huge part of the story. Google weren’t scared of just a competing app store but of Samsung replacing Android itself with their own Tizen OS. The Galaxy Store was just the consumer bridge to that possibility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen

aejnsn 5y ago
Yessir. This exactly.