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Google faces Russia Android probe after Yandex protest
- diyorgasms 12y agoOff topic, but I am curious. To any Russian readers, how does Yandex hold up to Google for Russian users? Does it provide an experience better than Google in some way? Do people use it simply because it is domestic? Is it similar to Baidu in that it is a means of controlling the flow of information?
- Danilka 12y agoIt does give better results when it comes to digging stuff up. If you take time factor into the account, it often falls behind on finding relevant news. To sum up, Yandex is a very good search engine for people who only search in Russian within Russia.
- Oleg2tor 12y agoAs far as i know Google beats Yandex in search (readed about this here http://habrahabr.ru/post/173351/ http://habrahabr.ru/post/173351/). But Yandex got more detailed maps (google missed some objects / buildings). Yandex got Taxi app, public transport app, navigator, metrika (google analytics copy) and etc, etc, etc. For me as developer - yandex provides much better api documentation and examples. But I can't understand - how can they force monopoly protest, being monopolists itself? Example - Only Yandex.Transport got API for public data (bus stops, Position Tracking) in Moscow. I am sure, that Google can protest them back. How Yandex had the nerve for this? Nothing personal, business only? P.S. All above is about Russia context. In USA I don't know which maps are more detailed.
- listic 12y agoNB: Once we're talking: All Yandex services: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yandex.ru%2Fall https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev... All Google services: http://www.google.com/about/products/ http://www.google.com/about/products/
- bobuk 12y agoYandex.Transport bought an access to API for positioning, but it's not exclusive. Everyone, including you can buy this access too, it's not very expensive.
- Oleg2tor 12y agoSo, where I can get those API? Can you get me link or something?
- blumkvist 12y ago>But I can't understand - how can they force monopoly protest, being monopolists itself? Putin.
- guard-of-terra 12y ago"Only Yandex.Transport got API for public data (bus stops, Position Tracking) in Moscow" Moscow officials state that it is not the case, they're not limiting their APIs to Yandex only. Yandex is merely the first one to gain access.
- cabirum 12y agoYandex Search is couple of years older than Google, and specializes in Russian market from the beginning. It provided much more relevant results for quite a few years. Some services mirror Google's while being tailored to Russia/CIS audience: mail, yandex.direct=adwords, chrome-based yandex browser, maps, news, social stuff, cloud storage. Some services, like yandex market or rabota (job search), have no Google counterparts. Also, their support is more responsive. So no, it's nothing like Baidu and more like Intel vs AMD.
- listic 12y agoYandex.Market kinda corresponds to Google Shopping. http://www.google.com/shopping http://www.google.com/shopping Curiously enough, Google doesn't provide Shopping in Russia: there's no 'Shopping' tab when searching through google.ru, and when browsing via Russian IP, google.com does redirect through google.ru. While we are on AdWords/Yandex.Direct, is there any alternative to Wordstat from Google? http://wordstat.yandex.com/#!/?words=iPhone http://wordstat.yandex.com/#!/?words=iPhone
- cabirum 12y agoYou can switch by clicking a link at the bottom, "Use Google.com". As for shopping, interestingly, it works here: "Online stores shipping to Moscow, Russia", but it's quite simplistic. Yandex.Market is more like Amazon if you look at its parametric search and filters.
- listic 12y agoI can switch, but for that I need to go explicitly to goole.com (it redirects to .ru), click "Use Google.com" and search. As opposed to searching right from the browser address bar. Shopping works if you use google.com, but if you use google.ru - it isn't there.
- sam_lowry_ 12y agoYandex.Market has a great API that lets shops integrate with it. Some shops even manage to exist without having their own websites. They just sell through Yandex.Market. Google Shopping does not even come close.
- xentronium 12y agoFirst of all, yandex is a very old search engine (launched in 1997). For a very long time yandex was way better for search queries in Russian which was obviously a deal breaker for domestic users. Like google and yahoo, they have a full suite of internet services (mail, search, news, virtual currency, etc), so you wouldn't gain much by switching. Yandex also possesses some unique domestic services that google doesn't have (market, taxi, traffic jams).
- podgib 12y agoI'm surprised there haven't been more lawsuits like this. I expect we'll see more suits like this, plus some about bundling of Chrome, and even about making Google the default search engine in Chrome.
- daddykotex 12y agoWhat I can't understand from this is why would there be a lawsuit about the default search engine in a browser built by a search engine company? If you install Google Chrome, you do it voluntarily. It's not like the browser was forced up on you. I do understand why they sue for Android issue, as it is quite hard to find a good phone, running Android, that is not bundled with all the Google services.
- anon1385 12y ago>If you install Google Chrome, you do it voluntarily. Maybe you downloaded some software that also bundled Chrome by default: http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-chrome-bundled-with-realplayer/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-chrome-bundled-with-real...
- thesehands 12y agoAndroid is still an O/S built by a search engine company. If a phone manufacturer isn't making a build specific to their device and using the 'vanilla' version provided by Google then it is the device maker limiting free choice of search engine by using a limited O/S. Google should not be forced to cater for lazy manucfacturers.
- task_queue 12y agoChrome came bundled and set as the default browser on my phone.
- daddykotex 12y agoI guess it's a manufacturing decisions because it didn't on my Nexus 5, or I'm just lucky :P
- staunch 12y agoGoogle didn't set out to be evil. They just discovered, like Microsoft, that monopoly levels of domination are like the One Ring. Bill Gates is Frodo. Larry Page is Bilbo.
- icehawk219 12y agoThere's also something to be said about the margins realized by being a monopoly. There's a reason you see fewer companies in cut-throat industries doing stuff like Microsoft Research or Google X. Research is expensive and that means you need big profits to support it and having a monopoly is a great way to guarantee big profits.
- ethbro 12y ago> Bill Gates is Frodo. Larry Page is Bilbo. Well that certainly doesn't bode well for what the next five years look like... Edit: Assumed you'd put them in chronological order. Bill Gates as Bilbo and Larry Page as Frodo is terrifying.
- dschiptsov 12y agoSo they want to quietly hijack the setting, the way all the fucking windows crap does, to redirect the traffic, and when it fails they complained about unfairness? How about writing your own OS and creating an ecosystem for hardware vendors and developers first?
- oddx 12y ago> How about writing your own OS and creating an ecosystem for hardware vendors and developers first? I think it would be better for society if smaller companies will be able compete with monopoly without requirement to spend billions.
- dschiptsov 12y agoIs it a news that corporations are creating "ecosystems" to make money, not to benefit third-parties? What if something wrong with the "strategy" of being able to be a very successful third party in someone's else ecosystem? Google is no monopoly. There is windows mobile, of course.
- oddx 12y ago> Is it a news that corporations are creating "ecosystems" to make money, not to benefit third-parties? Corporations do their job to make money of course, but it's better to limit harm they can create when making money. Regulations are productive in many ways including regulation of possibility to destroy or significantly limit competitors and competition. > What if something wrong with the "strategy" of being able to be a very successful third party in someone's else ecosystem? Nothing wrong with it. The problem is that ecosystem owner can significantly limit competitors. > Google is no monopoly. There is windows mobile, of course. Strictly speaking yes, it isn't monopoly, but it is close enough to it, so it can use his position to harm competition.
- dschiptsov 12y agoThis is very good rhetoric. I really appreciate. How, how does "significantly limit competitors" relate to the requirement to make an explicit, conscious choice by the user instead of allowing a quiet change of device settings? Not allowing any third-party search apps or not allowing to change the default app by the user could be considered as a "significant limit", but there is no such restrictions.
- blfr 12y agoThis should probably be viewed as an extension of the Ukrainian conflict. Everything else is garnish.
- vbezhenar 12y agoI don't think so. Yandex is very neutral company in that regard. They have Ukrainian office with developers. For Ukrainian users they show Crimea belonging to the Ukraine when browsing from maps.yandex.ua. You can check it yourself, compare maps.yandex.ua and maps.yandex.ru.
- blfr 12y agoYandex may be neutral but Russian regulators probably aren't so it's a good moment to have a complaint about an American company.
- dreamweapon 12y agoIf they had balls, they'd show it as belonging to Ukraine -- or at least as disputed -- on both maps.
- vetinari 12y agoGoogle does exactly the same thing. Currently I'm in a country that didn't recognize Kosovo independence and Google shows it as disputed territory, otherwise part of Serbia. Exactly the same way for Crimea and Ukraine. It is neither of these companies job to take sides. The simplest way is to show to each party what they want to see.
- dreamweapon 12y agoGoogle apparently shows Kosovo as a disputed region in the U.S., as well (demarcated by a dashed, rather than by a solid line). Ditto for the Crimea.
- mikeash 12y agoMaybe if they had balls they'd show it as belonging to Russia on both maps. Why assume they'd be on your side?
- DCKing 12y agoWhat are they talking about, exactly? It's perfectly possible to "unbundle" Android and Google's services. Google goes furthest in unbundling possibilities for any popular operating system, since they give away the source code for the operating system to be freely modified and be bundled with other cloud services. Amazon, Microsoft+Nokia (Bing) and many Chinese smartphone vendors (Baidu mostly) have all shown that this is possible. People pretend that Android without Google Play Services is somehow worthless or necessarily incomplete, which I don't agree with in the slightest. It seems to me that what they're talking about is actually that Google's cloud services package bundles default Google Search, and Google does not provide the user or vendors with enough flexibility here. Okay, I'll definitely grant them that. So they want to use Google's cloud infrastructure selectively for the Play Store, but not for other profitable and integrated cloud services? Sounds a bit like eating your cake and having it too. If you look at this way, it doesn't seem such a reasonable request, although I guess it would be better for the market if Google was forced to give in.
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- throwaway49873 12y agoIt's not Yandex that wants the play store, it's the device manufacturers. Google is using it's position as the leading android store to prevent competition in other areas. I think it's bad for the market, bad for privacy, bad for other companies and ultimately bad for the consumers.
- solve 12y agoThe non-free Google Play APIs, which are heavily used by many Android apps. This makes it a real pain to run popular Android apps on Blackberry, for example. So in practice, very few users do. Edit: Warning - lots of downvotes in this thread, seemingly for any Google critical comments.
- DCKing 12y ago> The non-free Google Play APIs, which are heavily used by many Android apps. I think this is an exaggeration. Some developers make too many assumptions, sure, but I don't think you'll find many high-profile non-Google apps that don't run on a Kindle Fire tablet for this reason. EDIT: People seem to think that Google Services contain the bread and butter of the Android OS, but if you look at what APIs are actually provided by them [1], it doesn't contain anything that is not a client of Google's cloud services. [1]: http://developer.android.com/google/index.html http://developer.android.com/google/index.html
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- alphadevx 12y ago> act after three electronics comapnies Don't often spot spelling mistakes like that on the mighty Beeb, tut tut etc.
- Zigurd 12y agoThis complaint is a narrow one: It is focused on the requirement to make Google's apps the default apps. In that it is similar to the Microsoft case where Microsoft was forced to provide a selection of browsers on installation. So it isn't as ridiculous as some here have claimed, and it is possible Google and/or the OEMs selling in Russia will be forced to make some accommodation or exit the market. This wasn't always a requirement if you remember that terrible Verizon phone with Bing as the default (and impossible to change) search engine. The question is whether Yandex can make a case for Android as a monopoly, and whether the choice of making an AOSP-based Android variant with a Yandex ecosystem isn't enough relief from such a supposed monopoly.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago>> This complaint is a narrow one While this is true, the implications could be far reaching for companies here in the US Since Apple has instituted their "walled Garden" approach to all their software and now Microsoft is doing the same with their software, it would open the door for more litigation against both companies as "monopolistic" if Yandex were to prove its case against Android. The interesting question then becomes, if "monopoly" means not having choices once you've selected a company's OS (meaning you have to use their apps, their browser, their API's), or is it irrelevant since you do have a "choice" to go with whatever OS you want to use to begin with?
- task_queue 12y agoThankfully, United States v Microsoft Corporation solved this particular dilemma in 2001.
- lsaferite 12y agoPerhaps you could expand upon what you think they solved?
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- Animats 12y agoUnder US antitrust law, that's a tie-in sale.
- ogurechny 12y agoLast year, Yandex had to fight against government attention to its news aggregating service (that has a significant share of user traffic and ranges sources automatically by quality instead of closeness to official propaganda). Rumor has it (and I may be totally making things up) that Google conveyed an idea or two to the originators of the those censorship law proposals that were supposed to make Yandex manually filter “extremism” from news pages. Because Google doesn't have Russian offices anymore, idiotic government initiatives harm it much less than they harm Yandex.
- ocdtrekkie 12y agoHeh, gotta love the folks downvoting anyone who criticizes Google. ;) Real classy, folks.
- ocdtrekkie 12y agoAnd for the appropriate meta: Folks who downvote anyone who points out they're downvoting people for criticizing Google. ;)