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Google's agreement with Samsung prevented Branch from launching: testimony

138 points by EMIRELADERO 3y ago

granzymes 3y ago
Interesting that Google isn’t particularly concerned about this antitrust trial. “They basically don’t feel the doj has a real case”: >The DOJ filed its complaint against Google in this case on October 20, 2020. A couple days later, another Samsung employee suggested to Chang that the lawsuit might cause Google to loosen its interpretations of its contracts with Samsung. >Chang responded: “Actually the COMPLETE opposite. Google just did a f*ck you to Samsung. After the doj filings, they submitted a new redline that went backwards om all negotiations with Samsung and was even more aggressive in being restrictive….They basically don’t feel the doj has a real case.”
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  I've seen the DOJ lose every antitrust case its filed recently. All they're doing is at worst generating bad PR for large companies and airing their dirty laundry. The US Government might actually need to pass legislation if it wants effective anti-trust enforcement.
  - FormerBandmate 3y ago
    This has always been true. Antitrust failed hard until the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed. Courts can’t just do things without the law backing them up
    - kmeisthax 3y ago
      It's not just that they can't, it's that the American courts have a long and storied history of nullifying antitrust law.
  - gmerc 3y ago
    The supreme court has been captured by business interests so no, it’s game over
    - worik 3y ago
      > The supreme court has been captured by business interests Has it? Definitely captured by conservatives, not the same
      - Animats 3y ago
        That's going to be interesting. If you think the current Court is inclined towards originalism and following the text, antitrust enforcement today should be back to how tough it was under Teddy Roosevelt. This is the actual text of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act: Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or other- wise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, at the discretion of the court. Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof; shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court. Sec. 3. Every contract, combination in form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce in any Territory of the United States or of the District of Columbia, or in restraint of trade or commerce between any such Territory and another, or between any such Territory or Territories and any State or States or the District of Columbia, or with foreign nations, or between the District of Columbia and any State or States or foreign nations, is hereby declared illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court. Passed the House and Senate almost unanimously, by the way. One dissenting vote in the Senate. Yes, jail.
  - yathaid 3y ago
    The situation is way more complicated than what you seem to have understood. From https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/never-seen-anything-like-it-the-biggest https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/never-seen-anything-like-...: > Last summer, I noted that it takes time for agencies to act, but that they had put a bunch of torpedos in the water, and they would be exploding over the next year and a half. That’s exactly what’s happened. And the consequences are real. The most significant one is that the merger boom that started in the 2010s is now over. > You wouldn’t realize this success if you listen to the conventional wisdom in politics, because Wall Street is pushing a public narrative that antitrust agencies are losing in courts, and therefore they are losing their ability to stop deals. But this isn’t true, because if it were, you wouldn’t see regular reports from business publications lamenting the decline in deals, and writing things like “The average size of mergers completed is now at the lowest level in 20 years.” And you wouldn’t have deal-makers on CNBC calmly describing how hard it is to get mergers done. _________ Progress is slow because the judiciary is stacked with ex corporate lawyers and lobbyists who will not interpret the law the way its written but have their own imaginary version based on the Chicago School of Economics' made up models on how the economy works.
    - 7speter 3y ago
      Are mergers low because of DOJ “torpedoes” or because debt isnt as cheap as it was 3 years ago?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dclowd9901 3y ago
  Can someone help me out… what’s that word f*ck supposed to be?
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  It might be a case of not caring about the consequences, as they're already facing similar issue with the EU commission and have promised to do something about it 3 years ago [0]. Either they'll keep doing nothing, and so an additional lawsuit won't change that, either they've got changes on the way but will milk it up as long as they can before finally moving on. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/20/18273888/google-eu-browser-search-choice https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/20/18273888/google-eu-browse...
  - jsnell 3y ago
    As far as I know those changes happened in EU. It wasn't just promises. Do you have a source saying otherwise?
- dalbasal 3y ago
  I think managing antitrust cases is a core competency for Google. They've learned that antitrust isn't scary. The worst that might happen is a fine or a court ordered policy-change. The fines are the minor cost associated with monopolistic business practices. In this case, the practice is Google's profitable and strategic SE-OEM deals in this case. Those have been litigated before, and win or lose, it is trivially better to continue the practices and just deal with the heat when it comes.
raister 3y ago
[flagged]
granshaw 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- plumeria 3y ago
  Doughnut?
  - fooker 3y ago
    Dagobah!
Roark66 3y ago
Why is it that Samsung needs an agreement with Google in the first place? Is it about a permission to use androing with Google services or does Samsung want to be paid for setting Google's search engine as default? The answer to this question is really important, because if the first is true, Samsung is essentially forced to enter into whatever agreement Google puts in front of them (the alternative is it's own flavor of Android a-la Huawei). However, if the latter is true Samsung is complicit in this monopolist practice. Does anyone know which one is it?
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Google services sure come with binding conditions on what they can do with android and in particular what they can't do with the search bar (get rid of it, put another search engine etc.) The EU is after them on it, but I don't remember a clear result yet: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_16_1492 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_16_... [edit] Google was found guilty and made some promises in 2019, but I'm not sure we've seen any change in substance ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google_by_the_European_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Goog...
  - Lorkki 3y ago
    I switched to a new Android phone just weeks ago. Choosing the search engine was part of the onboarding wizard.
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      Thanks. BTW does it change what happens with the home search widget when you run voice regonition or other features that usually run the assistant ? Come to think of it, Huawei or Xiaomi phones must come with their app storr, so the real test would be to see what defaults they have in EU ?
      - jeroenhd 3y ago
        After breaking my Google Assistant with a custom ROM, I unintentionally found out that yes, there is a setting for the default assistant app in the settings. I don't know if any actual alternatives exist, but you can definitely change the default settings. My issue was that Google Assistant didn't realise that it was set as the default, and my attempts to launch it just brought up a prompt to configure it as the default assistant. The Pixel launcher is deeply integrated with Google, so that doesn't support switching search providers I think. You can install any other launcher you want if you dislike searching through Google from the home screen.
pipes 3y ago
Have I got this right: the software provides search results that brings you to pages in apps?! Surely that's what the web and web search is for? I don't need to install your app I just need a web browser.
- onion2k 3y ago
  Businesses don't like the web because every time you search you have competitors next to the results. Getting users to install an app massively increases the lifetime value of that user. Consequently if search can take you directly to the app, businesses will pay more for search ads.
- dalbasal 3y ago
  Perhaps, but that's not the point. The point is that you can't have this software, because the monopolies in this space have formed a trust to prevent it from being an option.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  You're missing the whole picture. Branch.io was actually quite popular among a number of big app developers. A big part of what they did was deep linking into your app, and I may have the timing on this wrong but I think it was before iOS or Google had any deep linking functionality released. For example, you see this all the time on normal Android searches now, where if I have an app already installed and I search for, say, "Miami real estate", since I have the Realtor app already installed, Google's results come back and say "App installed", and when I click on the result it opens the Realtor app to Miami. A big part of Branch's product, IIRC, was their "deep linking through install" functionality. That is, if I search for Miami vacation rentals, and I don't have the app installed, it would just open, say, the realtor.com website for Miami. But there would be a prominent "install app" suggestion, so I could then download the app from the App or Playstore. Importantly (and, again, I may be getting the timing wrong), at that time there was no way to "pass through" a desired landing page after the app was installed. Branch's links allowed that information to be passed through, so when I opened the newly installed Realtor.com it would open right to Miami. I can't remember all the tech details of how they did this but I believe it was some form of device fingerprinting.
SubiculumCode 3y ago
Inflation is caused by every part of the economy at once. It is the oil in capitalism. Not profit. Bust those Corporate Megamunching Companies that sit and profit from rent seeking. They are the inflation. Without that oil, capitalism becomes stale corrupt and not inclusive. Raise prices when you earn another dollar, because they own the store cross the street too. But small companies get bought. Then entangled with foreign adversaries. And we are in an information skirmish with Russia and others. To deny it is to have accepted your part. So what are the security consequences of trust busting without serious reform on ownership in American companies.
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents (or any generic tangent actually) - they make discussion more repetitive and therefore less interesting. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=generic%20discussion%20by%3Adang%20-flamewars%20-flamewar&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - SubiculumCode 3y ago
    I was making a posed argument on why such monopolistic behaviors are a part of inflation, and that in the broader context, stories such as this underscore the trends..increased unionization..more trust bust. This made me wonder about how this could play out in the context of contemporary geopolitical events. I do not see how it can be anything but on topic and pertinent to this industry.
    - dang 3y ago
      The comment had too much generic rhetoric (about inflation, capitalism, Russia, etc.) and too little specific information to count as interesting.
dalbasal 3y ago
You can't scare google with antitrust. The game is structured. If Google lose, they face an affordable fine or mandated adjustment to a single business practice. In this case, the business practice is "OEM Search Deals" which has been litigated before. The practices is profitable and strategic enough to take the heat. IMO, antitrust was entirely declawed by the "US vs MSFT" settlement in 2001. It's a similar case. An operating system with 90% market share using their position to dominate key parts of the application market. We now know this as the "platform strategy." Something that investors demand from CEOs, as opposed to a legal risk to avoid. For the young.... "US vs MSFT" was the high profile case(s) of the 90s. Software was known to be monopoly prone and the case was expected to reveal what was and wasn't allowed. MSFT litigated similar antitrust cases in the early 90s, and settled. The key term of this era was "bundling." MSFT concluded that antitrust was a cost of doing business. MSFT continued bundling to reserve key application markets for itself. Gates rubbed it in. DOJ took offence and went on a warpath. DOJ pursued real antitrust. MSFT was found guilty of monopolism and the court actually ordered a "breakup." Seems far fetched today. The model for monopoly "breakups" was the 80s breakup of Bell (telcom). Shock! Insanely aggressive by today's standards. We can't even conceptualise how a breakup of a big tech today would work. Anyway... doj flinched. They settled the appeal. OEMs were freed from MSFT exclusivity. Real antimonopolism was off the table, and never returned. I don't really blame them. Breaking the monopoly of a tech giant could, and likely would, decimate their value. Bell was a telcom. Physical and concrete. WTF does "breaking up Google" actually mean? How can a judge do this task.
- voisin 3y ago
  > WTF does "breaking up Google" actually mean? Well for one, the ad business could be separated into the auction system and the use of the auction system on their different services.
  - dartos 3y ago
    A few more off the top of my head Android could be spun off. The whole pixel phone business as well. GSuite could be its own thing. I think google is still an ISP in some parts. They’re research sections too.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
Proof that editorialised titles are acceptable.

138 points by EMIRELADERO 3y ago

Interesting that Google isn’t particularly concerned about this antitrust trial. “They basically don’t feel the doj has a real case”: >The DOJ filed its complaint against Google in this case on October 20, 2020. A couple days later, another Samsung employee suggested to Chang that the lawsuit might cause Google to loosen its interpretations of its contracts with Samsung. >Chang responded: “Actually the COMPLETE opposite. Google just did a f*ck you to Samsung. After the doj filings, they submitted a new redline that went backwards om all negotiations with Samsung and was even more aggressive in being restrictive….They basically don’t feel the doj has a real case.”

faeriechangling 3y ago
I've seen the DOJ lose every antitrust case its filed recently. All they're doing is at worst generating bad PR for large companies and airing their dirty laundry. The US Government might actually need to pass legislation if it wants effective anti-trust enforcement.
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  This has always been true. Antitrust failed hard until the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed. Courts can’t just do things without the law backing them up
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    It's not just that they can't, it's that the American courts have a long and storied history of nullifying antitrust law.
- gmerc 3y ago
  The supreme court has been captured by business interests so no, it’s game over
  - worik 3y ago
    > The supreme court has been captured by business interests Has it? Definitely captured by conservatives, not the same
    - Animats 3y ago
      That's going to be interesting. If you think the current Court is inclined towards originalism and following the text, antitrust enforcement today should be back to how tough it was under Teddy Roosevelt. This is the actual text of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act: Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or other- wise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, at the discretion of the court. Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof; shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court. Sec. 3. Every contract, combination in form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce in any Territory of the United States or of the District of Columbia, or in restraint of trade or commerce between any such Territory and another, or between any such Territory or Territories and any State or States or the District of Columbia, or with foreign nations, or between the District of Columbia and any State or States or foreign nations, is hereby declared illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court. Passed the House and Senate almost unanimously, by the way. One dissenting vote in the Senate. Yes, jail.
- yathaid 3y ago
  The situation is way more complicated than what you seem to have understood. From https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/never-seen-anything-like-it-the-biggest https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/never-seen-anything-like-...: > Last summer, I noted that it takes time for agencies to act, but that they had put a bunch of torpedos in the water, and they would be exploding over the next year and a half. That’s exactly what’s happened. And the consequences are real. The most significant one is that the merger boom that started in the 2010s is now over. > You wouldn’t realize this success if you listen to the conventional wisdom in politics, because Wall Street is pushing a public narrative that antitrust agencies are losing in courts, and therefore they are losing their ability to stop deals. But this isn’t true, because if it were, you wouldn’t see regular reports from business publications lamenting the decline in deals, and writing things like “The average size of mergers completed is now at the lowest level in 20 years.” And you wouldn’t have deal-makers on CNBC calmly describing how hard it is to get mergers done. _________ Progress is slow because the judiciary is stacked with ex corporate lawyers and lobbyists who will not interpret the law the way its written but have their own imaginary version based on the Chicago School of Economics' made up models on how the economy works.
  - 7speter 3y ago
    Are mergers low because of DOJ “torpedoes” or because debt isnt as cheap as it was 3 years ago?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dclowd9901 3y ago
Can someone help me out… what’s that word f*ck supposed to be?
makeitdouble 3y ago
It might be a case of not caring about the consequences, as they're already facing similar issue with the EU commission and have promised to do something about it 3 years ago [0]. Either they'll keep doing nothing, and so an additional lawsuit won't change that, either they've got changes on the way but will milk it up as long as they can before finally moving on. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/20/18273888/google-eu-browser-search-choice https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/20/18273888/google-eu-browse...
- jsnell 3y ago
  As far as I know those changes happened in EU. It wasn't just promises. Do you have a source saying otherwise?
dalbasal 3y ago
I think managing antitrust cases is a core competency for Google. They've learned that antitrust isn't scary. The worst that might happen is a fine or a court ordered policy-change. The fines are the minor cost associated with monopolistic business practices. In this case, the practice is Google's profitable and strategic SE-OEM deals in this case. Those have been litigated before, and win or lose, it is trivially better to continue the practices and just deal with the heat when it comes.

raister 3y ago

[flagged]

granshaw 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
plumeria 3y ago
Doughnut?
- fooker 3y ago
  Dagobah!

Roark66 3y ago

Why is it that Samsung needs an agreement with Google in the first place? Is it about a permission to use androing with Google services or does Samsung want to be paid for setting Google's search engine as default? The answer to this question is really important, because if the first is true, Samsung is essentially forced to enter into whatever agreement Google puts in front of them (the alternative is it's own flavor of Android a-la Huawei). However, if the latter is true Samsung is complicit in this monopolist practice. Does anyone know which one is it?

makeitdouble 3y ago
Google services sure come with binding conditions on what they can do with android and in particular what they can't do with the search bar (get rid of it, put another search engine etc.) The EU is after them on it, but I don't remember a clear result yet: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_16_1492 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_16_... [edit] Google was found guilty and made some promises in 2019, but I'm not sure we've seen any change in substance ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google_by_the_European_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Goog...
- Lorkki 3y ago
  I switched to a new Android phone just weeks ago. Choosing the search engine was part of the onboarding wizard.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    Thanks. BTW does it change what happens with the home search widget when you run voice regonition or other features that usually run the assistant ? Come to think of it, Huawei or Xiaomi phones must come with their app storr, so the real test would be to see what defaults they have in EU ?
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      After breaking my Google Assistant with a custom ROM, I unintentionally found out that yes, there is a setting for the default assistant app in the settings. I don't know if any actual alternatives exist, but you can definitely change the default settings. My issue was that Google Assistant didn't realise that it was set as the default, and my attempts to launch it just brought up a prompt to configure it as the default assistant. The Pixel launcher is deeply integrated with Google, so that doesn't support switching search providers I think. You can install any other launcher you want if you dislike searching through Google from the home screen.

pipes 3y ago

Have I got this right: the software provides search results that brings you to pages in apps?! Surely that's what the web and web search is for? I don't need to install your app I just need a web browser.

onion2k 3y ago
Businesses don't like the web because every time you search you have competitors next to the results. Getting users to install an app massively increases the lifetime value of that user. Consequently if search can take you directly to the app, businesses will pay more for search ads.
dalbasal 3y ago
Perhaps, but that's not the point. The point is that you can't have this software, because the monopolies in this space have formed a trust to prevent it from being an option.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
You're missing the whole picture. Branch.io was actually quite popular among a number of big app developers. A big part of what they did was deep linking into your app, and I may have the timing on this wrong but I think it was before iOS or Google had any deep linking functionality released. For example, you see this all the time on normal Android searches now, where if I have an app already installed and I search for, say, "Miami real estate", since I have the Realtor app already installed, Google's results come back and say "App installed", and when I click on the result it opens the Realtor app to Miami. A big part of Branch's product, IIRC, was their "deep linking through install" functionality. That is, if I search for Miami vacation rentals, and I don't have the app installed, it would just open, say, the realtor.com website for Miami. But there would be a prominent "install app" suggestion, so I could then download the app from the App or Playstore. Importantly (and, again, I may be getting the timing wrong), at that time there was no way to "pass through" a desired landing page after the app was installed. Branch's links allowed that information to be passed through, so when I opened the newly installed Realtor.com it would open right to Miami. I can't remember all the tech details of how they did this but I believe it was some form of device fingerprinting.

SubiculumCode 3y ago

Inflation is caused by every part of the economy at once. It is the oil in capitalism. Not profit. Bust those Corporate Megamunching Companies that sit and profit from rent seeking. They are the inflation. Without that oil, capitalism becomes stale corrupt and not inclusive. Raise prices when you earn another dollar, because they own the store cross the street too. But small companies get bought. Then entangled with foreign adversaries. And we are in an information skirmish with Russia and others. To deny it is to have accepted your part. So what are the security consequences of trust busting without serious reform on ownership in American companies.

dang 3y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents (or any generic tangent actually) - they make discussion more repetitive and therefore less interesting. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=generic%20discussion%20by%3Adang%20-flamewars%20-flamewar&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- SubiculumCode 3y ago
  I was making a posed argument on why such monopolistic behaviors are a part of inflation, and that in the broader context, stories such as this underscore the trends..increased unionization..more trust bust. This made me wonder about how this could play out in the context of contemporary geopolitical events. I do not see how it can be anything but on topic and pertinent to this industry.
  - dang 3y ago
    The comment had too much generic rhetoric (about inflation, capitalism, Russia, etc.) and too little specific information to count as interesting.

dalbasal 3y ago

You can't scare google with antitrust. The game is structured. If Google lose, they face an affordable fine or mandated adjustment to a single business practice. In this case, the business practice is "OEM Search Deals" which has been litigated before. The practices is profitable and strategic enough to take the heat. IMO, antitrust was entirely declawed by the "US vs MSFT" settlement in 2001. It's a similar case. An operating system with 90% market share using their position to dominate key parts of the application market. We now know this as the "platform strategy." Something that investors demand from CEOs, as opposed to a legal risk to avoid. For the young.... "US vs MSFT" was the high profile case(s) of the 90s. Software was known to be monopoly prone and the case was expected to reveal what was and wasn't allowed. MSFT litigated similar antitrust cases in the early 90s, and settled. The key term of this era was "bundling." MSFT concluded that antitrust was a cost of doing business. MSFT continued bundling to reserve key application markets for itself. Gates rubbed it in. DOJ took offence and went on a warpath. DOJ pursued real antitrust. MSFT was found guilty of monopolism and the court actually ordered a "breakup." Seems far fetched today. The model for monopoly "breakups" was the 80s breakup of Bell (telcom). Shock! Insanely aggressive by today's standards. We can't even conceptualise how a breakup of a big tech today would work. Anyway... doj flinched. They settled the appeal. OEMs were freed from MSFT exclusivity. Real antimonopolism was off the table, and never returned. I don't really blame them. Breaking the monopoly of a tech giant could, and likely would, decimate their value. Bell was a telcom. Physical and concrete. WTF does "breaking up Google" actually mean? How can a judge do this task.

voisin 3y ago
> WTF does "breaking up Google" actually mean? Well for one, the ad business could be separated into the auction system and the use of the auction system on their different services.
- dartos 3y ago
  A few more off the top of my head Android could be spun off. The whole pixel phone business as well. GSuite could be its own thing. I think google is still an ISP in some parts. They’re research sections too.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

Proof that editorialised titles are acceptable.