27 ms·
Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
- coolandsmartrr 5y agoWhy is the plaintiff, California Crane School, suing Apple and Google? As far as I see, the plaintiff is not in the tech business, as they're a school that teaches how to operate cranes[1] [1] https://www.californiacraneschool.com/ https://www.californiacraneschool.com/
- ma2rten 5y agoAlso, why is this crane school spending the money to hire 9 lawyers to work on this lawsuit?
- nefitty 5y agoThey're pivoting, so to speak.
- cconcepts 5y agoNot many HN comments make me laugh out loud, but this did
- texasbigdata 5y agoYou mean….swivelling?
- acallaghan 5y agoSomeone had the do the heavy lifting I guess
- intothemild 5y agoBeautiful.
- syspec 5y ago
- nefitty 5y agoDo you have a better answer or do you prefer devolving this into meta?
- dpe82 5y agoI think the parent was suggesting HN is a place for thoughtful, respectful and on-topic discussion. Guidance is provided here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Of course, the last one is: "Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills."
- smitop 5y agoThey use Google Ads: I Googled "crane schools in california" and one of the results was an ad for California Crane School. Apparently they think that they are paying too much on those ads: "The complaint alleges that advertising rates are higher than rates would be in a competitive system".
- randomsilence 5y agoWould more competition actually drive advertising rates down? Buyers don't have the option to buy from just one supplier. They want to reach everybody in their niche. Thus, they have to buy from every supplier and cannot negotiate the price down. If they leave, a competitor will take those clients and pay whatever those users are worth.
- echelon 5y agoThey're entirely correct. Google and Apple operate as a cartel. If the web experience wasn't 90% Google (outside of social media), and the phone experience wasn't 50% Apple / 50% Google, everything would be cheaper due to competition. Just look at the percentages app developers pay. In a free market with five alternatives, there probably wouldn't even be an app store. We'd do native app downloads over the web and invest a ton of energy into security and privacy controls.
- gretch 5y ago> We'd do native app downloads over the web and invest a ton of energy into security and privacy controls. This has been demonstrated to be false. This scenario is exactly what we used to have in the windows PC era and no one invested "a ton of energy into security and privacy controls". That unfulfilled need is exactly what propelled Apple to the #1 spot when it came to the mobile era.
- voltagedivider 5y ago> no one invested "a ton of energy into security and privacy controls". Anti-virus?
- 5y ago
- bpodgursky 5y agoThe company just a vehicle for a law firm that wanted to drive the lawsuit, and the legal work is being done free of charge unless they win. The lawyers needed to find a plaintiff with standing (you can't just sue because you don't like something, you have to be able to show damages).
- encryptluks2 5y agoJust a reminder here folks that anyone can sue for anything. That doesn't mean that evidence will show any of the claims are true, but it will be interesting to follow and see what evidence they claim to have. Note Google is now incorporated in Delaware so it does seem that venue may be an issue.
- aero-glide2 5y agoEven if the lawsuit fails we may get to see internal emails https://twitter.com/techemails https://twitter.com/techemails
- encryptluks2 5y agoA lawsuit would need to progress to discovery in order to get emails. It is more likely it would be dismissed before then, and then my guess is some right-wing group will claim a conspiracy because of it.
- andyjohnson0 5y ago> Just a reminder here folks that anyone can sue for anything. California Crane School Inc seem to be a provider of training for crane operators, so I'm curious why they're suing Google over this particular allegation. I wonder: is there any possibility that they're a proxy for some other party or parties?
- encryptluks2 5y agoMy guess is this is a right-wing effort and will be dismissed relatively quickly, and they'll use that to push some conspiracy.
- mjevans 5y agoWould Apple be a monopoly if they did enter the 'search' business? Google at least can leave Android free, and people that ship it able to customize as well as customers able to switch search providers. Apple would have a very vertically integrated stack, and would they allow anyone else making a phone equal access?
- mnd999 5y agoAndroid isn’t free. There is a free kernel but so much of what is useful and expected by users is now wrapped up in play services.
- awestroke 5y agoI've never paid to use play services. If you did, you were scammed
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoYou do not understand how it is not free: It's sold to OEMs in exchange for control of their devices and mandatory placements. In countries who have working antitrust law, Google now charges OEMs for Play Services access per device, where they cannot legally force the OEM to default to Chrome and Google Search. And you, as the consumer, pay for it with literally all of your privacy.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- danielheath 5y agoPhone manufacturers incur costs to get it installed. Do you imagine they decide not to pass those on?
- bagacrap 5y agoreally? What cost? Is that public information? My understanding was that play services was no longer part of Android core because Google didn't want phone manufacturers mucking with it (creating an inconsistent and frankly worse experience on some devices), not because they were trying to charge a fee for it.
- dpark 5y ago”The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the competition of smaller competitors and foreclosing competitors from the search market; (6) acquiring actual and potential competitors.” Except for #6, this is literally “Google pays Apple to be the default search provider.” The alternative option seems to be that Apple is for some reason required to use their position to enter the search market.
- raverbashing 5y agoIt's been a while since I've seen a paragraph that badly written (I mean, the quoted part) It's a Press Release from a law firm but I'm not sure I would take a law firm that writes like this seriously.
- littlecranky67 5y ago> "Google pays Apple to be the default search provider" If that is the case they might not act anti-competetive but, rumours are [0] Apple received up to $20Bn per year in this deal. It is hard to believe that this payment is just for being the default search engine. I strongly suspect that Apple also agrees to not build their own search engine as long as this deal is on - and if that is the case, there will be a strong foundation for an anti-competetive lawsuit.
- londons_explore 5y ago> $20B. It is hard to believe that this payment is just for being the default search engine. Well ask yourself what the value of this placement is? Google earns about $200 per user, mostly in ad revenue. If Google search wasn't default, they'd probably lose half the users. There are 1 billion iPhone users. At $200 each, Google stands to loose $200b. So a price tag of $20b to keep that...
- 5y ago
- sdze 5y agoIn my opinion Apple is already in the search business. At least Siri prevents a regular web search if Siri found the webpage I was looking for. It offers me directly the link to the page in the suggestions.
- Closi 5y agoThis is using Google’s API to provide the search result.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y agoNo it isn't: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204683 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204683
- Closi 5y agoInstant answers are provided by Apple, but when search answers are provided these are Google. Apple needs to still crawl to provide instant answers. Statement from Apple in 2017 when they switched to Google from Bing: > Switching to Google as the web search provider for Siri, Search within iOS and Spotlight on Mac will allow these services to have a consistent web search experience with the default in Safari. (https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/apple-switches-from-bing-to-google-for-siri-web-search-results-on-ios-and-spotlight-on-mac/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/apple-switches-from-bing-t...)
- Doctor_Fegg 5y agoRight, so when I type something into the Safari search bar on iOS, it gives me Apple-sourced suggestions from the web, even though I have "Search Engine Suggestions" turned off (because I don't want my URL typing history leaking to a search engine). That qualifies as "already in the search business" IMO.
- Closi 5y ago> That qualifies as "already in the search business" IMO. Well they are definitely in the search business anyway, as >20% of Apple's annual revenue is from search. It's just that all the revenue apple makes from search comes directly from Google in the form of a $20bn payment, and Google powers almost all their actual web searches (i.e. not instant suggestions), so I think it's hardly an independent 'search business' and more of a 'search partnership with Google'.
- thathndude 5y agoThe “article” is a PR release written by the plaintiff’s firm for release. By all means, read the complaint and discuss the case. But keep that in mind as to the link.
- calltrak 5y ago
- Bellamy 5y agoStartpage uses Google for it's results so I'm not sure if that qualifies as an alternative. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startpage.com https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startpage.com
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wakeupcall 5y agoBing/Google are used as a backend by many of these. Kind of worrying.
- DimmieMan 5y agoI've become fond of Ecosia; results still aren't great (Bing under the hood) but at least it's planting trees.
- nabla9 5y agoGoogle could be better, but they serve people who react to ads. People who click ads like different search results than the rest.
- seaman1921 5y agoSpam. Just looked at your comment history - how many times are you going to spam the same link, which is also your own website.
- CobrastanJorji 5y agoHere's the complaint: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_Northern_District_Court/3--21-cv-10001/California_Crane_School_Inc._v._Google_LLC__et_al/1/ https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_Northern_Distri... The putative class they're suing to represent is apparently "All consumers and businesses who paid Google to place advertising on Google search in the United States since January 1, 2005." I think the basic argument is "Apple might have created a competing search engine business, but Google paid them not to, which hurt people buying Google ads because competition would imply those Google ads may have been cheaper, therefore Apple and Google need to pay the better part of a trillion dollars to these customers and then be broken up into smaller companies."
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago> I think the basic argument is "Apple might have created a competing search engine business, but Google paid them not to That's the feeling I got. I mean if this was the case, then Apple could be sued by Google for extortion - "pay us or we'll build a competitor". This lawsuit makes no sense.
- why_only_15 5y agoAre these sort of entirely business-related threats extortion in a business context? This seems like regular business practices to me.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoThats not extortion, because threat to compete is not a threat. Its a proposal for collusion
- hkt 5y agoAIUI in US competition law price is the only consideration, so this is smart. It will hinge on whether or not Apple had any concrete plans to build a search engine, and if their abandonment of it can be linked to the deal with Google. Which is to say it is a tall order and might not succeed. But if it does.. goodness, what a hit they'll take.
- 5y ago
- planb 5y ago"The complaint charges that Google and Apple agreed that Apple would not compete in the internet search business against Google. [...] The complaint also calls for [...] the breakup of Apple into separate and independent companies" This doesn't really make sense in my layman's view: They complain that Apple stays out of search (which is not their core business) and then want to break up Apple. For what reason? Because they are operating outside of their core business?
- sidcool 5y agoIt does not surprise me. Search is bread, butter and oxygen for Google. Spending a few billion dollars a year to sustain a revenue of hundreds of billions of dollars seems logical. Not sure right or wrong. But understandable.
- 893368203 5y ago
- netcan 5y agoThe whole structure of antitrust regulation is, by negligence or design, weird and weak. #1 Why does there need to be a plaintiff? A trust affects consumers and society broadly detrimentally, not some specific competitor. The competitor google is likely trying to suppress is some theoretical startup anyway, they probably don't exist to sue. #2 Why the focus on specific damages? The specific harm of such a trust are inherently unknowable. The Google-Apple deal isn't new, and has been widely reported on. Google pays more to apple than 2nd place (MST/YAHOO) has ever delivered in topline revenue. Apple can (a)take pure profit with no effort or risk, (b)build a competing business with much worse best-case prospects, or (c) leave room in the market for someone else to try. It's not really a choice. Meanwhile, Google's largest investments (eg chrome, android) are just an insourced version of the Apple-Google trust. Monopolistic deals and strategies aren't a side-show, they're the primary activity of these companies. To me, it's increasingly obvious that monopoly issues are structural. It's not what Google/Apple do, it's what they are. Dealing with antitrust in an infraction->lawsuit manner, post facto, is a designed to fail structure. IMO there are two choices, besides just accepting the prevalence of monopolies, cartels & trusts. (1) They can be broken up. (2) They can become "regulated monopolies," with a regulatory structure designed to prevent monopolistic harms before they happen. Yes, it will harm their profitability.
- streamofdigits 5y agothe "market" seems to be betting that these monopolies will persist more or less exactly as they are (see eg the 3 trillion apple valuation that is really an unfathomable number unless you condition that basically the entire US economy will be co-controlled by those entities) so it seems to me that disastrously bad regulation has created self-sustaining monsters. which market worshiping politician would dare burst that multi trn-bubble?
- netcan 5y agoGood question. Reminds me of the "housing affordability" question. If politicians had a magic wand that turns a city with $1m median house prices into a $250k one...
- bleah1000 5y agoI don't think this is even worthy of being reported on. There is a high likelihood of this being thrown out in summary judgement. You can't claim something without at least some facts that indicates that Apple was going to build a search engine and the payments made by Google made Apple stop development. My guess is this is more of a PR stunt than a real lawsuit.
- koheripbal 5y agoI agree that these headlines are worthless if no evidence is presented in the article. Having said that - they have not yet presented evidence in court, so they may indeed have evidence.
- thathndude 5y agoLawyer clarification incoming: Summary judgment motions come after the discovery process (the expensive process that often leads to tech companies' dirty little secrets reaching the light of day). If the dollar figure is right, the companies would probably try to settle before summary judgment. A motion to dismiss, on the other hand, is a pre-discovery mechanism to dismiss claims. These are relatively cheap (by large company standards). I think there's a decent chance this case gets bounced on an MTD. If it gets past the MTD and into discovery, there's probably an early settlement where the lawyers get paid off.
- bleah1000 5y agoOops, mixed up my terms. Thanks for the clarification.
- jpalomaki 5y agoIsn’t the main question here how much direct profit/loss Google makes from the deal? If this is not profitable (via the search ads) then it would be easier to argue it is just done to keep competition away.
- henvic 5y agoIf this hearsay were the case, it wouldn't be the business of anyone beyond Google and Apple stockholders. Antitrust legislation is awful, and only works jeopardizes competition despite supposedly helping it.
- errcorrectcode 5y agoThis doesn't seem like a real problem considering users can choose DDG on iOS and macOS, or pick another browser. If Apple only allowed Google Search, then it would be a problem. Or if an Android OS only allowed GS or Edge only allowed Bing, then it would similarly be a problem too.
- throwaway4good 5y agoThis would be under criminal law in the US, right? Basically jail time for the executives if it is true.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Mindwipe 5y agoPerhaps Apple has a slight bit of self reflection and just realises that after the catastrophe that was Apple Maps that they'd be no good at making a search engine? They have no in-house expertise and the small scale search products they do make are very, very bad.
- zepto 5y agoApple Maps is world class and better than Google maps in many ways now. If Apple learned from their launch of Maps it should be to wait until it’s ready. Of course Google didn’t give them a choice in the case of Maps.
- bell-cot 5y ago> [...] alleging violations of the Antitrust Laws of the United States. > The complaint charges that Google and Apple agreed that Apple would not compete in the internet search business against Google. [...] IANAL, but how credible a threat must the potential competition be, for a sober judge to get interested? If Bob's Pizza Parlor got $10/year from Google for not competing in the internet search business - would that be anything but a bizarre joke? Similar for Apple - sure, they've got $billions. But also shareholders who don't want those $billions squandered. Apple's in-house expertise in developing and running internet search engines is ~nill. And how many companies, ever, have managed to create and profitably run an internet search engine - in a market with at least one established and profitable competitor? With $lots_of_billions on the table, Apple's head negotiator might say all sorts of things, to squeeze yet more $$$ out of Google. (1)"Bing is offering us more." (2)"Customers are complaining that your search results are getting crappy." (3)"We'll set up our own search engine." (4)"We'll invent a time machine, and set both of Larry Page's grandmothers up with better husbands." How many of those statements are credible? Legal? If (2) and (3) hit at Google's deep-seated fears, but (3) is not actually credible, is this any different (beyond the emotional cheap shot) than (4)?
- roody15 5y agoI have always found it problematic that on mobile safari you cannot change search providers. They have a small list to choose from (bing, yahoo, duckduckgo, google). but no way to add anything else. You have to jailbreak the device just to add a different search provider. This seems anticompetitive IMO.
- adam_arthur 5y agoThat way they can charge you to get on the list! China has screwed up a lot with the messaging behind their regulations on tech companies, but the spirit of promoting competition from them was good. Competitive markets are more important than free markets for positive societal outcomes.
- throwoutway 5y ago> China has screwed up a lot with the messaging behind their regulations on tech companies, but the spirit of promoting competition from them was good. You have got to be joking..
- adam_arthur 5y ago
- redanddead 5y agoExplain your POV
- sovnade 5y agoAre we really talking about China promoting competition in the context of search results?
- adam_arthur 5y agoThis is an article about allegations of anti-competitive behavior, and China has just spent a year enacting many new rules to foster competition among their tech companies. In many areas they went too far, and their approach to enacting the rules led to mass, unnecessary fear, but the spirit behind a lot of the changes was good. e.g. Alibaba can't ban links to competitors within their social apps. Apple does not allow use of custom search engines, unless you pay to get on their list, or consumer has to go through hoops with extensions. Do I need to draw more lines to make the dots connect for you?
- evancoop 5y agoThough collusion between two tech giants is obviously distasteful and anticompetitive, how is this ultimately addressed? Sure, governments could force Google and Apple to break into smaller entities...but as long as humans still largely choose the best software, there will still be network effects that lead to dominant players emerging. In turn, there will be new giants. So...either there are general paradigms/regulations/principles to apply, or we'll simply return to this state repeatedly, no?
- exikyut 5y agoReturning to this state repeatedly, aka a cyclic system, isn't all that bad, if it means we ultimately don't exceed the current threshold. IMHO the collective furor necessary to drive development in the space (eg, Google and Apple both maintain whole web browsers) is necessarily weakly-coordinated at scale and will probably always inevitably cue this sort of thing to rise up. *shrug*
- fortran77 5y agoThe "Alioto Law Firm" who wrote this press release can't spell the word "its." This makes me wonder about the whole firm. > "The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple;"
- null_object 5y agoI cannot get over how much moaning and whinging people on HN do about supposedly not being able to choose their search-engine on iOS "without jail-breaking" their device when simply switching to another browser like iCab Mobile means they can choose absolutely any search engine they want in addition to the 25 that are included by default. For goodness sake do the minimum amount of research before squealing helplessly about needing to jailbreak your device.
- Bud 5y agoYou don't even have to switch browsers! The option to change Safari's search engine is in Settings > Safari > Search Engine.
- 0xB31B1B 5y agoDefaults matter, and defaults encode the behavioral choices of like 80% of users. The downstream effects of this are that the default options have the most support. Its totally rational to complain about a bad default option.
- Retric 5y agoOn the other hand, I did change the default iOS browser easily. However, it would have been annoying to have a list of hundreds of options to choose from rather than the major ones.
- bufferoverflow 5y ago80%? I think it's over 99%. Very few people would install a custom browser on mobile, most go with the default.
- nonameiguess 5y agoI highly doubt that, since it would imply 99% of users are using Samsung Internet on Samsung devices rather than Chrome, which doesn't seem to be true. If iOS users are largely using Safari, it's because Safari is actually a good enough browser that it isn't worth switching.
- efsavage 5y agoIf Apple wrote a search engine, would it only return one result? (the right one, of course...)
- DevMois 5y agoFinder would be a good name in that case
- nathanganser 5y agoAre there any proofs?
- mrkramer 5y agoThis is what I asked 2 months ago: Ask HN: Why is Google paying Apple to be default search engine on iPhones? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29047978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29047978
- nova22033 5y agoSomeone filed a lawsuit against a company? In America?!! Why is only prnewswire covering this breaking news?
- sour-taste 5y agoSo is Mozilla being sued next because they never created a search business? Google pays mozilla to be the default search engine too, just on Firefox.
- nescioquid 5y agoI'm curious about this: > (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; Assuming the allegation is correct, what recourse would Google have if Apple took the multi-billion-dollar payment and then entered the search business? Surely a lawsuit would only set Google up for anti-trust complaints, so would their only recourse be to not fork over subsequent multi-billion-dollar payments to Apple? It seems analogous to a broken agreement between criminals -- one or more parties is outside the protection of the law. Could this reasoning also be used to defend against the allegation, i.e. surely Google wouldn't put themselves in such a situation where they could have no guarantee or surety that Apple wouldn't just take the money and run?
- cjbgkagh 5y agoWhile Apple does have a war chest they don’t seem to have the culture for it. Back when I was in the industry they imported a bunch of eBay rejects. Although if Google keeps getting worse then maybe eventually.
- asjdflakjsdf 5y agoSlighlty off topic but has anyone else noticed the following trend on HN recently? Post == Article Critical of Google Top Comment === Plays down the severity of said criticism The upvotes don't seem to have much correlation between the post title and the comments. I wonder is such behavior caused by certain UI features on this site/app, or are comments graded differently?
- paulpauper 5y agointeresting articles can still be wrong. people will upvote stuff that may be interesting even if parts are wrong
- Kstarek 5y agoIts all the rage to be critical of Google right now, easy upvotes for the idiots who dont read articles or understand the real world. People who take the time to comment tend to exhibit (a little) more critical thinking skills
- acoard 5y agoThe top comment on HN for any given topic is usually contrarian. It's in our cultural DNA. Perhaps the effect is intensified for some topics like tech giants — I haven't noticed — but keep an eye out and you'll see it happening everywhere. I have a hazy memory of even seeing this effect on HN given a proper name at some point in the past. As to why, I think it's largely cultural or found in personality traits that techies and hackers often have. Most us techies have a desire to "well, actually", even if we know it's rude and have learned to suppress or positively channel that urge. But at the end of the day, by proving something wrong, however pedantic, we get to prove we're smart. That's why the percentage of pedantry is probably higher on here and Wikipedia than on TikTok and Snapchat.
- latexr 5y ago> I have a hazy memory of even seeing this effect on HN given a proper name at some point in the past. The contrarian dynamic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22contrarian%20dynamic%22%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- adam0c 5y agois that bot part of basic business 101...? oh look someone wants to compete but we can pay them not to.
- sjg007 5y agoI want Siri to search my installed apps first and the web second. The whole siri search UX is just god awful.
- AlbertCory 5y agoMost of the comments talk about the ease, or lack of it, of adding a different search engine to Safari. I'm sure Apple would love for everyone to focus on that, and then they can make a big noise about settling the suit by allowing more choice. I think the complainants are really asking "why don't they do Apple Search, just as they now do Apple Maps, i.e. their own search?" How would this make Google unhappy and willing to pay billions to prevent it? They could buy DDG or Bing or some other product to get a head start, and then pour their limitless $$$ into improving it. It might not succeed any more than Apple Maps has, but then, a $3T competitor is not to be taken lightly.
- superfreek 5y agoAs someone who has no idea about the legal system in the US, does the source have any grounding, and is there any chance this goes anywhere?
- dehrmann 5y agoI'm not convinced Apple could make a viable search product to compete with Google. Their Maps app is OK, but not as good as Google's, and I can't imagine anyone other than the privacy conscious installing an Apple Maps app on their Android phone. It's possible Apple knows it has no interest in the search business, but Google doesn't know that, so they might as well squeeze a few extra dollars out of them.
- nyokodo 5y ago> Their Maps app is OK, but not as good as Google's Except Apple Maps has definitely been improving and Google Maps doesn't seem to be substantially improving anymore. At the current apparent trajectory Maps will catch up quickly.
- babypuncher 5y agoI would argue Apple Maps is already better in several important ways. It is only a matter of time before it no longer makes sense to use Google Maps.
- ghughes 5y ago> Google Maps doesn't seem to be substantially improving anymore. Google Search is even going in the other direction. (Recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29392702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29392702) I wouldn't bet against Apple if they were incentivized to compete in this space. Their whole shtick is using feats of engineering to dominate lazy competitors.
- asdff 5y agoThat's assuming apple maps will actually serve you reliable navigation one day. I'm tired of uturns, unprotected lefts, and not finding local restaurants that are on google and every single grubhub type service on the internet except apple maps seemingly.
- nyokodo 5y ago> I'm tired of uturns, unprotected lefts I get this with Google Maps and not Apple Maps so your anecdotal experience is at least questionable.
- MarioMan 5y agoAlso worth looking at is the DOJ antitrust complaint filed against Google in 2020: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/7273457/10-20-20-US-v-Google-Complaint.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/7273457/10-20-20-US-v... It makes a similar set of complaints for the same practices and, in my opinion, is very well-written.
- LatteLazy 5y agoPerson claims thing, may or may not have evidence, claim made in such a way it is not subject to defamation etc and can be repeated without any chance for a reply.
- xbar 5y agoiPhone feature request turned into anti-trust money grab by legal goons?
- mynameisash 5y agoSince I have a hard time staying emotionally invested in this (I'm as frustrated with the state of tech as everyone else), I just want to share the first thing that came to mind when I read this headline, a quote from Catch-22: "His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the country."
- GeekyBear 5y agoIf keeping Apple from developing search functionality is the goal, this appears to not be working, since Apple already uses it's own web search functionality for Siri results and Spotlight Suggestions. >Applebot is the web crawler for Apple. Products like Siri and Spotlight Suggestions use Applebot. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204683 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204683
- gbmatt 5y agoI just posted this same comment on the ddg story, but I'm going to post it here as well. Google forced my search engine (gigablast) basically out of business. I had ixquick.com as a big client at one time; I was providing them with search results from my custom web search engine. Then their CEO called me one day and told me he was cancelling, even though he'd been a client for over 10 years. He said it was because of some change Google had made to their agreement. Ixquick needed Google's results and ads for their startpage.com website, and, even though my results were shown on their ixquick.com and later ixquick.eu site, apparently Google wasn't good with that.
- olliej 5y agoLet's be honest. Based on Siri's search who here wants an Apple search engine? :D