I really like this point:
> [Google] has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks").
Woaah, if this is dropped, it might entice someone to produce Google-free Android Phones (e.g. with MicroG) WITHOUT sacrificing the "Google pre-installed" Android market. I would buy the Google-Facebook-Other_BS-free variant of your otherwise commercial high-to-mid-end, google-and-other-stuff-infested mobile phone!
Sometimes when I'm in a cynical mood, I feel like my android phone isn't really mine, it's owned by google and exists purely to serve them.
This would improve the smartphone market on so many levels. We need a great driver support for AOSP, multiple app stores, community driven updates, so on and so forth to make this new reality.
I also feel like Android could play a huge role in IoT if it weren't as Google infested as you call it.
PS - site is working fine for me.
But this is objectively true, else why would Google spend so much money developing an OS to release for free?
I am not aware of a smartphone out there where that isn't true. What is the incentive for Google to continue updating Android at all?
Isn't that what the BlackPhone has been doing for some time?
https://www.silentcircle.com/products-and-solutions/blackpho...
But I am not willing to spend 650 Euro on a BlackPhone2 when a 250 Euro phone is technically/hardware-wise enough for me. If things go as the EU wishes, Silent Circle could offer mass market phones at competitive prices and with the software most users expect (full Google Android experience) in addition to their current offering - allowing for MUCH better scaling effects and thus lower prices for their phones.
You can s/Silent Circle/ with any other manufacturer, e.g. HTC or Samsung. Those are already targeting the mass market and thus are already producing at scale. In theory they "only" need to develop a source tree variant, add some bucks to the price for Enterprise phones and could then serve a (gut feeling: growing?) privacy niche as well.
I don't know if that's really worthwhile for any them, I honestly have my doubts; what's the local saying? Hope dies last... Whatever way this turns out, at least now the manufacturers have more legal options (in the EU).
A formal decision—which would mark the EU’s sharpest rebuke yet to the power of a handful of tech giants—is set to be taken during Wednesday morning’s meeting of EU commissioners following a presentation by competition chief Margrethe Vestager, according to the person. No discussion of the decision is expected, the official said.
The EU’s antitrust regulator has been looking into whether Google had abused the dominance of its Android operating system, which runs more than 80% of the world’s smartphones, in order to promote and entrench its own mobile apps and services—particularly the company’s eponymous search engine.
Google, which can appeal, has rejected the EU’s case since the bloc issued formal charges over two years ago. Google says Android, which is free for manufacturers to use, has increased competition among smartphone makers, lowering the prices for consumers. Google also says the allegation that it stymied competing apps is false because manufacturers typically install many rival apps on Android devices—and consumers can download others.
The fine would top the EU’s €2.4 billion antitrust decision against Google just over a year ago.
Wednesday’s expected ruling would be the latest in a series of decisions in which the EU has cast itself in the vanguard of a backlash against U.S. tech superpowers, on issues ranging from competition to taxes to privacy. Ms. Vestager has become the face of that battle, arguing that regulators must do more to restore fairness to the digital market.
The EU’s executive announced Wednesday morning that Ms. Vestager would give a press conference at 7 a.m. ET.
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com
If you think you see similarities between this fine and the microsoft case you should also consider the differences.
For all intents and purposes the market is split 50/50 between Android and iOS, and the fact that Android can be competitive with iOS is largely due to Google’s conditions, as by ensuring quality and consistency they spared Android from the fate of the desktop linux and turned it into a mass market product, not to mention the whole free and open source thing, which is a big deal that is seemingly being brushed aside (what about all the forks?!).
In any other context finnig an open source project for antitrust violations is absurd.
They keep hitting Google with these record fines as there is no political cost for hammering Google in the EU it’s all profit, they get fawning headlines from an approving press and quench the bloodthirst of the politician there who don’t even try to hide their distaste for US tech firms and Google in particular (try and look up their quotes), they can talk up the benefits of free trade all they want and complain about this tariff or that but there is no denying that much of what the EU does is try and hamstring US tech companies.
P.S.
A recent indicator as to the political nature of this action, the fine announcement was delayed until after Trump's visit to europe: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust/eu-go...
When Google remove free apps that are used by millions of users from the play store for weeks, because one of their own automated tests fails, such fines can't come soon enough.
The 2nd paragraph in the press release.
Expect pricey freemium models coming to the Google product line in the coming years, which will give the green light to other companies to push higher prices for software.
We've already entered the age of monthly subscriptions, the amount of iOS apps using this system is growing at an unprecedented rate. Get ready!
What do you say?
They should probably do this anyway, since control of computing platforms and user data within them is fast becoming a major factor both in geopolitics and in business.
> [Google] has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google's app store (the Play Store);
I think this is an acceptable business practice. Saying "If you use one, you have to use the others" is reasonable. We want to provide a consistent experience so you cannot pick and choice which part of the bundle you use.
> [Google] made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app on their devices;
I don't see how this is a problem in a business. "Hey, we want to use our app. Here is some money if you agree to only use ours." Seems like a bog standard way of doing business.
> [Google] has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks").
This one I think the Commission has made a good point with this one. This one does hamper competition because you have to choose Android or Android forks. Well, that is an obvious choice because of how big Android is. That is bad for competition and I am okay with Google being fined for it.
Overall I disagree with 2/3 of the reasons but I do respect the Commission to make the fines big enough that they hurt so that Google might change behavior.
I also think that manufacturers have themselves to thank. AOSP used to be quite complete in the old days, but every time Google updates it, it takes ages for the device makers to update their devices (if they do it at all); that's why so much of what makes Android great right now relies on Play Services. It was a move that was welcomed by the consumers/tech journalists.
You are answering your own question. The problem is that Apple is not under investigation because it has 15% a 20% marketshare and so it's impact is regarded as rather small and not seen as a monopoly.
When you have a big share of the pie there are other rules that apply and personally I'm fine with that. When you have 80% of the market it can't be all fun and play.
My iPhone serves me even if it is apple infested. My Nexus 6P can’t make me feel the same. Feels like it exists only to feed google data about me, and help me a little while doing so.
Given the enormous amount of anti-competitive behavior we see every day in the news, I can't help but feel this fine seems a bit arbitrary.
The fines "reflect the gravity and duration of the infringement. They are calculated under the framework of a set of Guidelines last revised in 2006." (http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/procedures_101_en....). There's a link to the guidelines on the page.
I also had a look at how to file an anti-trust complaint but to be honest, most info was over my head and more appropriate for a lawyer - this seems to be a good start: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/contacts/electronic_document...
Probably in part yes, but the European Commission is also pretty proactive. E.g. if I remember correctly, they reached out to Mozilla to get their take on how MS was bundling IE with Windows, after Opera originally complained about it. This came out of it: https://www.google.com/search?q=browser+choice+screen&tbm=is...
Isn't it a bit late though?
> Is this the result of lobbying?
In all likelihood there was almost certainly an element of lobbying, in particular complaints about these business practices which eventually coalesced into some kind of more focused activities.
It seems a bit quixotic to blame "competitors". Which competitors exactly? That's the whole premise of abuse of dominant market position.
Whenever allocating limited enforcement resources, you would expect the most egregious violators to be targeted first, with immediate social benefits and prompting self-compliance for smaller actors.
I imagine they read the antitrust law and then applied it. I could be wrong, though. Maybe it's because "they hate America for its freedoms."
Free market advocates are always talking about regulations and the need for free markets but don't seem to care so much about monopolies, outsize profits, the accumulation of market power and its abuse that further impedes the operation of free markets and the billionaires that result.
We're all a lot better off, even people that use iOS, because there has been real competition in mobile. This is essentially choosing which business models the EU thinks should win.
I'm sorry but this move is garbage. I am British and I'm so glad the UK is leaving this horrible, success hating farce of a union. Google paid billions to develop Android and then gave it away for free under the Apache license specifically to encourage competition and diversity in the smartphone market. They then added a carrot of some apps and the app store if OEMs agreed not to introduce backwards incompatibilities, to avoid the J2ME problem of a hopelessly forked and buggy platform.
If they hadn't done these things, very likely Apple would have wiped out every competitor in existence.
The EU is sending a powerful message with this move: keep everything proprietary, pick a high enough price point to price out most poor European countries, and you'll be fine. Build an open ecosystem where competitors target every price point and you'll suddenly find yourself being an involuntary contributing member to the EU's budget. What a great disincentive to build products for the Spanish or German markets.
Google is clearly getting in to the smartphone manufacturing business with Pixel phones and their acquihire of HTC engineers.
Outside of HN, most consumers want the integrated experience offered by Apple and the default Google apps. You see this with Samsung - where consumers like the hardware but are not super keen on Samsung Apps.
The easiest way to get that integrated experience is to buy an Apple or Google device.
In addition, said closed source components and services are merely defaults, and you can install anything you want?
Example: Bing Search, Cortana with full Android Assistant support, Microsoft Launcher (which has full Bing and Cortana support, just like Pixel Launcher has for Google), and Microsoft Edge.
Further Example: TouchWiz, Bixby, Samsung Browser, Samsung App Store, Samsung Pay, Samsung Everything. If there is an AOSP/Google app, Samsung has probably replaced it with a custom app that is not based on the AOSP/Google version and has generally ruined their phones with them.
I guess the EU has to fine Microsoft and Samsung too, since they also give away closed source OS components for Android, and they can only be used with Microsoft and Samsung services... even though it is optional to use them and can be replaced with something else.
I guess the EU has to fine Apple too, since they do not allow third party components at all, all the way from third party app stores, third party browsers, or anything deemed "overlaps with functionality in iOS (retroactively as well)".
Nothing they provide really mandates they have a physical presence.
This is the tech version of people starting a $100M GoFundMe for Kylie Jenner to reach a net worth of $1B.
Can Google just continue their practices after this?
it'd be interesting to imagine how a company could potentially still operate in a hostile country, if said company is only dealing with cyberspace products (such as software/saas).
Would they be able to continously ignore any/all rulings, by operating the datacenter, and any payment mechanisms, outside said hostile country?
Seeing as nobody else has read the article.
>If Google fails to ensure compliance with the Commission decision, itwould be liable for non-compliance payments of up to 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover of Alphabet, Google's parent company. The Commission would have to determine such non-compliance in a separate decision, with any payment backdated to when the non-compliance started.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/17/google-reaches-7-8-million...
As for Google Mobile Services (GMS) - I believe the smart thing to do now would be to start charging OEM's, that sell phones in the EU, to license GMS at 5% of the cost of the device or $50 - whichever is lower. If OEM's don't want to use GMS they're free to ship their own services.
Big corporations often succeed in avoiding taxes [1][2], and regularly pit states or countries against each other to get the highest tax benefit [3]. Governments really don't like that, but often there's not a lot they can do.
Except for banding up in something like the EU, and using that combined power to strike back.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-02/google-s-...
[2] https://itep.org/amazon-inc-paid-zero-in-federal-taxes-in-20...
[3] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/09/07/could-your-st...
This is the tech version of people starting a $100M GoFundMe for Kylie Jenner to reach a net worth of $1B.
This is our version of a satirical fundraising campaign by a comedian?
I'm not sure what is so hard to understand in that.
Fuck the laws and regulations in the countries in which they do business apparently.
Is having someone as big as google a good thing for the rest of us? Would society, economies etc benefit from google broken down into several smaller independent companies?
In the form I stated, this is true, to get Play you must ship Google Search, and must do so on all of your devices.
What is not true, but implied by the EU ruling is that, a) Android (as defined as purely AOSP) is incomplete and unusable without Google apps, b) that other app stores do not exist for Android, c) that other search engines somehow magically don't work on Android.
None of those are true. I find it unfortunate that Android does not have higher profile alternative options, but no one else seems to want to put as much effort into their products as much as Google has.
Google's actions simply do not meet any reasonable definition of being a monopoly. Google's only action is requiring the entire Google Apps suite shipped on a device as an all-or-none license, it does not require the end user to use them, it does not prohibit the end user from installing others or disabling built in apps, it does not require signing into a Google account to use the device, it does not prevent APK sideloading.
And, until recently, Google was not even a phone OEM (and arguably still isn't, as they do not build their Pixels, HTC and LG do), and Pixels are not nearly as popular as Samsung Galaxy S series (which are famous for "ruining" the Android experience by using tons of custom Samsung apps), and LG G and V series, and Motorola phones dominating the mid-tier segment, and China and India being largely Xiamoi, Huawei, and BBK (Oppo, OnePlus, and Vivo).
Worldwide, Samsung and BBK are the #1 and #2 phone manufacturers, and they merely use Android as their OS. At what point did the EU have the authority to say Google had a monopoly when they do not sell Android phones in any reasonable capacity.
If Google packs its bags they'll be the ones feeling most of the pain. And such a drastic move would have consequences on any business Alphabet tries to do in the EU over the next decades.
Do you imagine the EU would force every ISP to block Google web search, Gmail, etc? Beyond being technically difficult I do not believe the EU currently has the power to create a Great Firewall of Europe like that.
Sure, if they don't want to get any revenue from the whole European Union anymore. Fortunately the EU is a big enough market so that Google doesn't have any leverage here.
Google leaving the EU would be, for the company, like Google leaving the US – firing half their staff, losing half their revenue and profits, etc. Absolutely not worth it.
The question I meant to answer wasn't about timing but about whether the fine is a result of lobbying.
Not for all the companies and FLOSS projects that have been wiped - or not even started - due to the Google / apple duopoly.
For example in Turkey betting is illegal, turkey will block any bet providers page. But some providers just change their domain regularly.
In principal I have a problem with legally treating a company different if they have 85% market share as opposed to 30%. I am okay with making anti-competitive practices illegal but we should also enforce those on small companies.
Of course you can expect any government to be a little easier on local businesses but as far as correctness goes the EU has always done a pretty good job.
Their 2016 profit was $19.4 billion and without the one-time foreign asset charge it would have been $22,4 billion, as such the fine compromises less than 1/4 of googles earnings.
Their European revenue was $22.6 billion out of $90 billion total revenue for 2016.
This makes it look like an incredible high fine. It's important to notice that the revenue in Europe is mostly google ads. The total revenue for alphabet is also bloated by thing stuff like other bet, which produce $400 million revenue and $900 million loss. Or to put it more bluntly, the revenue in Europe has a stronger influence on alphabets profits than the revenue in the USA.
I still think the fine is incredible high, one reason for this might be a lack of commitment from google after they were fined for $2.4 billion last year.
This being the second time google breaks European anti trust laws. In a really short time.
Last year they were fined for what Brusels describe like this in their press released: Since the beginning of each abuse, Google's comparison shopping service has increased its traffic 45-fold in the United Kingdom, 35-fold in Germany, 19-fold in France, 29-fold in the Netherlands, 17-fold in Spain and 14-fold in Italy.
---- A bit more on why google earnings are weird: "For the quarter of 2017 that ended on December 31, 2017, it actually recorded a loss of $3 billion, but that was due to a one-time foreign assets charge due to the recently passed U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. If that is excluded, Alphabet would have had net income of $6.8 billion, up from $5.3 billion compared to a year ago. "
yearly "For the entire 2017 fiscal year, Alphabet recorded revenues of $110.8 billion, up from $90 billion in 2016. Net income was $12.6 billion for the 2017 fiscal year, compared to $19.4 billion in revenues in 2016, once again reflecting the one time charge due to the tax law change."
src: https://www.androidauthority.com/alphabet-q4-2017-earnings-8...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/04/google-pays...
It is okay for them to do whatever they want with their Nexus/Pixel devices, since they fully own them. But forcing some random DTV vendor to install Google Search, Google Social Network, Google Online Shop, Google Payment System, Google This and Google That, just because the vendor chose to adopt a free operative system into their system, it's just abuse of power and monopoly.
It automatically gives Google an advantage over the Search, Online Shop, Social Network, etc, markets. It is basically impossible to start a new video streaming business in the DTV market, for example, when you know that every single DTV system has Youtube already installed just because Google mandates so. And Youtube is "good enough" for 90% of the people.
The entire world doesn't suddenly owe something to Google just because they made something open source.
Yes, why is that surprising ? They would also not get the benefit of OEMs shipping their bundle of services across the globe.
>gave it away for free under the Apache license specifically to encourage competition
It has nothing to do with increasing competition. It's anything but. That's one of the reasons for the fine. The non compete clause prevents OEMs from creating forks of Android.
What their agreements require is that the forks be compatible with base Android, that is, apps should run the same on every variant of Android. It's designed to ensure app compatibility and avoid the mistakes of the past, like with J2ME where apps had to be debugged on every single phone because they were all riddled with bugs and incompatibilities.
But outside of app compatibility issues vendors can and do make big changes, everything from the appearance to the UI to the set of bundled apps - Samsung for instance replaces the browser, replaces the calendar, replaces the contacts app, replaces the home screen, replaces nearly everything. And Samsung is a Google licensee. So clearly, your understanding of what Google is doing here is not accurate.
Did you read the main points of the press release ? If you (say an OEM like LG) license google play, you cannot create a competing OS based on AOSP. It has nothing to do with OEMs customizing AOSP for the devices they sell. It has everything to do with, say, an OEM selling a different phone that can run Amazon's version of Android with Amazon's services. I think that's one of the reason's why Amazon's phone never caught on. Nobody other than Amazon would be able to make or sell one because everyone had licences from Google.
From the press release:
"Google has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks")."
When Android was launched is was just another unknown piece of software, poor performance, lack of features, etc.
They can't both reap the profits of open source and then reject any disadvantages (such as with their anti-fragmentation clause).
They have the option at any point to go closed source and face the huge shitstorm that will follow.
Your points have been addressed above already, if Apple had a dominant market position, the EU would have handled things differently. And Apple has been fined by the EU before as well.
Raw numbers don't tell the whole story here.
However if the alternative is having to deal with the EU Commission then yep, I guess hard brexit is the next best alternative.
The reason the EU doesn't have any local mobile companies isn't do to with Android or Google's licensing terms. The EU had a very successful mobile firm and it shot itself in the foot over and over so badly it disappeared, because its own competitor(s) to Android just weren't good enough. Nokia was hopelessly out-engineered by Silicon Valley and in hindsight it would have done better to admit that, and become an Android OEM itself. It wouldn't have had to cut any deal with Google. It already had Ovi Maps and its own app store infrastructure. It could have done an Amazon and adopted Android without any strings attached.
They're currently headed towards not really exiting the EU. Once they looked into the details they determined that the drawbacks were outright lies (350M GBP/week) and the benefits are huge. It might even end up as a paper exercise.
Which is as it was before, of course.
However, i suspect if google left europe, another competitor to google (ala, bing?) would immediately swoop in and take all the business. Google would suddenly find itself losing 1/3 or even half of their revenue!
A similar analogy would be like the US blocking their citizens from traveling to North Korea. But then having direct flights from LA to Pyongyang and expecting North Korea to enforce the ban of US citizens at their customs. It’s not their responsibility..
To twist your analogy this is basically like the US deciding not to give Pynongyang aid any more, in which case yeah they might just decide to block US immigration.
They "could" block all import of Android based smart phones if they wished (based on noncompliance with trade rules of course).
In all liklihood they'd slap a levy on these imports which would either raise their price making alternatives more interesting to the market. Android devices are dominant in the cost sensitive segment.
Alternatively the manufacturers could push this back on to google or it might provide additional commercial impetus to develop a viable alternative.
That's the beauty of one of the largest economies in the world singing in harmony from the same hymn-sheet. When the collective foot is stamped it echoes around the world.
But Android is much more popular than Apple phones in some EU countries (not all) mostly because it's a lot cheaper. So either a lot of Europeans would have to fork out a lot more than they wanted to for a phone, or decide they couldn't afford a smartphone at all and go back to feature phones.
This is why you admit the EU would never do this.
When the collective foot is stamped it echoes around the world.
Very Orwellian imagery you have there. It wouldn't really echo around the world. Google wouldn't give a crap. Android was created mostly to stop Apple from gaining a monopoly and holding them over a barrel with respect to services (go read up on the origins of the project). It has wildly succeeded in that mission already. If the EU selectively taxes its own people whenever they buy an Android smartphone, this would not only hurt the EU's own popularity significantly (people love their cheap smartphones), but it wouldn't harm Google much or at all because Apple un-clenched a lot since Jobs died and iOS is a more open platform than it used to be, albeit, still nowhere near as open as Android. The rest of the world is sufficient to keep Apple in check anyway.
> Google wouldn't give a crap
LOL
Just to put this in context, the population of the EU is 508M vs e.g. the USA 325M
That's an awful lot of €€€ to turn your nose up at.
But most of the European political elite want to unite the continent under a single government instead. Given that, the best kind of Brexit would be one where the UK is no longer a part of this, and can sign various unlinked bilateral treaties to continue cooperation in the areas where there is agreement, and discontinue in areas where there are disagreement.
This makes perfect sense - agreement on everything is rarely possible, so collaboration on the areas where people do agree is the best you can do. It's also exactly what the UK has proposed repeatedly. However the EU refuses to allow it, exactly because if people were offered that alternative the EU and associated gravy train would cease to exist tomorrow.
Maybe the UK media points a wrong picture of the mood in the EU, but I seriously doubt that it would cease to exist if your alternative would be put forward. But that's something all Brexiteers tell themselves repeatedly, over and over, like a mantra.
If every population that's asked rejects the EU's vision what on earth makes you so sure that a comprehensive alternative wouldn't be popular?
Also there's no such thing as "picked apart" in the sense you mean, i.e. outside of military strategy. Nobody is picking North Korea apart despite that it's a world pariah. If a country doesn't want to collaborate with another country or accept its terms, it doesn't have to - the idea that cooperation is a form of warfare is exactly the mentality that the EU has, and is why it's so desperately dangerous and problematic as an organisation.
We're having this very discussion atop the world wide web which came from CERN.
There's no reason why I should have to sacrifice my privacy so that a few oligarchs can add a few more zeros to their bank accounts.
* https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/meet-europe-top-tech-...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_European_compa...
I actually hadn't realised Spotify was Swedish! Deezer is French.
Pretty much every high-end car manufacturer.
ARM.
Did you know the modern three-point tractor hitch was invented by an Irishman? Modern motor cars come from Germany. The Web as I mentioned earlier comes from CERN which is a joint European project.
Ericsson, Siemens, Philips.
Airbus is also another joint European cooperative.
Raspberry Pi.
Arduino.
Betfair.
Jetbrains.
Interesting exercise!
Sounds a lot how Microsoft abused licensing agreements with OEMs to discourage them from selling PCs not bundled with Windows.
I also wonder how they come up with the multi-billion dollar values? How does that massive amount of money actually help repair whatever "economical damage" that was inflicted by not having some sort of app pre-installed on a device?
Massive fines discourage monopolistic behavior, if nothing else.
By creating an incentive for Google (and other corporations) not to do it again.
I am really glad that EU did this, been waiting years for this to happen. Other fines will surly come. You can’t eat and kill your competition too long before someone starts to sett the records straight.
A happy day for us consumers!
Contrary to numerous posts-
-no, the law isn't "clear". This is an incredibly nuanced situation, and the notion that Google was just overtly flouting (ed: thx sjcsjc) the law is outright nonsense. Google has a huge litany of bad practices (I personally recently switched my daily driver to an iPhone for that reason), but simply saying "Surprise....enormous fine" is ridiculous.
-the fine is enormous. Various "well it's only a quarter's earnings across all of Google" are outrageous. Over 6 years Google spent a grand total of $1.1B in all expenses for Waymo, for instance. $5B is an enormous, enormous amount of money for any company.
I highly doubt this will be a "pay it and forget it" fine, but is going to ring across all multinationals as a warning.
If you actually read the decision that's essentially their underlying complaint. They dress it up in terms about search market blah blah blah, but in the end it's really about whether Google is allowed to control the experience of Android phones that want to use the Google apps and app store or not. Android being open at all was already a fight inside Google, this decision will essentially make it impossible for anybody win that fight in the future. I can't see why anyone would risk making an open platform again. Success only has downsides versus Apple's model. I expect the next major player here will either sell the operating system or sell the phones, and keep the other stuff closed
Sure GDPR is vague and had Edge cases, but it’s been a huge boon to the world. Thank you EU.
So all in all, the US internet companies are the pinnacle of globalist creation, or the biggest beneficiaries of such policy, and in the looming protectionist era, they will become the first sacrifice.
Also keeping EU companies in check :-)
It seems to be a rehash of the issue that Microsoft faced when it only gave you Internet Explorer on install. But iOS comes with only Safari on install, and forces you to use Apple's various apps - how is this any different?
All we have left is Apple and the most expensive, proprietary and locked down platform in computing history. A single gatekeeper effectively controls the app space. Safari dictates what happens on the web. Who wins here except for the company that's already the richest in history?
Or, more likely, the EU keeps going down this road and tech companies eventually start treating it like the backward nanny state it is and wall it off.
I know that anti-trust laws are probably not applicable as Apple does have a dominant position based on total market share, but to me this practice seems far more anti-competitive. Banning competitors seems worse than fully allowing competitors but providing your own as default that can easily be changed.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on...
They will always have cash to pay, even if the fines are higher and higher. They kind of expect for this in their long term strategic planning.
Let's say Google didn't license Android but instead only sold their own Pixel devices and somehow managed to achieve dominant market share this way. With good marketing and multiple price points this could easily have happened. Google search is the default but users can switch it to something else. This would be fine under the current reading of the law, right? So what this ruling is effectively doing is punishing Google for trying to create an open mobile ecosystem to compete with iOS's closed approach. How is this helpful to consumers?
Feels like a lot of recent EU rulings on technology are well intentioned but actually make things worse for consumers by picking favorites and raising barriers to entry.
the only reason Apple doesn't get a fine for iOS is because it doesn't have 80% of the market share.
this is the law
https://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-l...
let's do apple, facebook, and amazon next.
now if we could only convince comcast to provide services to the EU....
having a small set of companies controlling everything harms all consumers.
Apple has no market dominance in the EU, so nothing in this ruling is relevant to them.
yes; but to exactly the same degree that it strengthens all other competitors.
better yet, force companies to open up their walled gardens. I want phones to be more like PCs, where the device is in full control by the owner. I want the app store be available to be changed without consequence, and/or have multiple competing stores.
The only thing that's changed from then to today is Android's market share. I'm not so sure taking away Google's ability to fight fragmentation is necessarily a good thing for consumers or developers.
It'll certainly please OEMs and telcos, though.
The EC claims that google have "denied European consumers the benefits of effective competition in the important mobile sphere", but I fear this will mean that cheap Android phones will have a shitty OEM-branded webbrowser and some random search engine link.
If they must allow Android branded phones that do not come with google apps, then the EC is making it harder for consumers to choose by disallowing the normal use of a brand to signal what it is that you are buying when you buy something. People may buy an Android cheap phone thinking that they are getting what is now an Android phone and end up with a shittier product.
Under a normal market, these OEM-branded phones would be sold as "ShitPhone OS 12.0" and it'd be clear that you have the option between paying slightly more for Android, a lot more for iOS or go with ShitPhone 12.0
The stock is down about 1%. Not much considering that $5B should be about 1/3 of Googles yearly earnings.
On the other hand, 1% of Googles stock is about $8B. From that viewpoint, one might think it has come unanticipated.
Then again, stocks rise and fall 1% all the time. So it's hard to read something into it.
Is this the same case as reported in January here?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-results/alphabet...
"Profit fell 35 percent to $12.6 billion because of the tax bill and a separate charge last summer for a $2.7 billion European Union antitrust fine, which is under appeal."
Maybe in future earning reports we will see statements like "Legal fines went up 80% YOY from $7B to $12B and we are planning to continue our aggressive spendings in this area to expand our market dominance".
Fragmentation is 99% FUD right now. If everybody starts shipping huge forks of Android; with silently diverging APIs, it will be a nightmare.
And that's just for devs.
I guess my point is that I see why the EU reached this conclusion but I am unsure this will be a net benefit for devs and consumers.
If I was Google, I’d use this as a perfect PR opportunity to switch gears and start charging $250 per phone for licensing Android and then offer $50 per phone to put all Google related apps on their for a net gain of $200 a phone plus their previous market share. Chrome, Google, Android are too deeply infiltrated to even effect a single percent of sales to a new OS competitor.
Then slowly eat away at the competition by producing Pixel and related models which you can beat the competition for lower and mid phones by jacking up android licensing as you eat away at the market. End result, EU users pay hundreds of more per each phone and Hardware companies die off. Apple could also further jack up their phone prices.
> Despite being a record fine, Alphabet generated about the same amount of money every 16 days in 2017, based on the company’s reported annual revenue of $110.9 billion for the year.
Google is a big bully and if you try to compete with them in an area they care about, they will use their market dominance to keep your product out. They have been deserving that fine for a long time.
<shrug>
>Article 102
>Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the internal market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market in so far as it may affect trade between Member States.
>Such abuse may, in particular, consist in:
>b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers
>d)making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts
Ok, so, Google said "You can't use Google Play unless you force users to have Google Search installed".
How is that not clearly breaching d?
Then they said "You can't use Google Play if you try to help develop any android forks."
How is that not clearly breaching b?
>but simply saying "Surprise....enormous fine" is ridiculous
They've had at least two years notice, so could have reduced their fine by complying when they were first warned. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1492_en.htm The article literally warns about the exact things they're still doing.
They're a part of the same suite of apps that provide the "Android experience" (Google experience, whatever -- the thing that most consumers think of when they consider Android). They manifestly have a profound connection with each other.
And let's be clear here lest there be any confusion -- zero customers want a vendor to do anything different, and the only reason some vendors wanted to is because they could double dip: Pitch the Android experience and get the market inroads, while getting some Bing or whatever payola to "force" that on a consumer.
The same is true of the other claim-
Then they said "You can't use Google Play if you try to help develop any android forks."
Google's argument, whether honest or not, is that if you need a consistent representation of the Android experience that you're selling to consumers. If the GS8 has the full Android experience, but then the GS8P has the Android Fun Store and Bing Search, this can seriously dilute the market opinion of Android and cause consumer confusion.
This is absolutely not at all clear cut. It is incredibly nuanced. And if we just go around clubbing everything coarsely, why does my BMW have a BMW entertainment system? Why couldn't I choose Alpine at the dealer? An entertainment system is not an engine, right? I don't want to go down the road of absurd analogies, but if you're seriously presenting the notion that this is clear cut, you are not really thinking about it much.
As an aside, Google has had the same policies regard their suite of apps since day 1 of Android. Since the very beginning. When iOS absolutely dwarfed it. When Blackberry reigned supreme. When I was hefting around my sad little HTC Dream and listening to the John Gruber's tell us how doomed it was.
I can already see headlines bashing the EU though.
- Google had an operating income of 32.9 billion in 2017 [0]. $5B fine for anti-trust practices is 15.2% (5 / 32.9) of that. - HSBC had an operating income of 63.8 billion in 2017 [1]. In 2017, HSBC suffered a $1.9B fine for _willfully_ relaxing it's anti-money laundering filters in order to profit from the illegal drug industry, regimes that are embargoed, and entities or individuals who are suspected of financing terrorism [2]. That's a 1.9 / 63.8 = 0.29% fine for helping finance murderers.
That puts the Google fine into perspective, but it probably says more about the HSBC case than it does about Google's.
It should be noted that HSBC broke a deal to avoid prosecution, thanks to then Attorney General Eric Holder who overruled prosecutors' recommendation to pursue criminal charges. As part of the deal, HSBC confessed to above allegations, which was just a theory at the time.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/513129/operating-income-... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/258399/total-operating-i... [2] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/netflix-documentary-re-exa...
EU treaty article 102 is about as clear as it gets. Google even had precedence to look at. And finally, they were warned by the EU commission more than 2 years ago but chose not to comply. This is a company with hundreds of lawyers on staff, and with the best law firms on retainer.
The fine is huge, but it's a small fraction of their revenue. This fine is measured based on guidelines that have been the same for more than a decade: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52...
I'm not sure how that's a bad thing.
Don't think trade wars applies. The reasons were given and I think they are correct. Personally I'm glad that the EU has the power to (at least a bit) influence such huge corporations.
The case started in 2015. So Google had enough time to appeal and provide info to regulators. So, it wasn't a surprise. Yes the law might not be clear but I think the deliberations took time because of the same reason. If laws were clearer Google fines might have happened back in 2015.
Why? It's meant to be a meaningful penalty that shareholders will feel in their pockets. If fines are just a small cost of doing business, all the evidence is that firms shrug and pay them, because the producer surplus they reap is usually much larger than the fine.
I think that this is already a counter-attack of "dieselgate".
Well , judges had a look and decided it was
Thats funny you think Apple doesnt have bad practices... They are seemingly the worst when it comes to IP and giving customers and developers what they want.
actually, 2017 google made $110B so its not 1/4 but 1/22 of their profits last year.. enormous? meh.
So in fact it is not about "whether Google is allowed to control the experience of Android phones that want to use the Google apps and app store or not".
Regarding open source, Android v1 was an underpowered and underfeatured newcomer in a market dominated by Symbian and Blackberry where Windows was at a few percent and iOS was making inroads.
There's a very good chance that without it being open source it would have went precisely nowhere. Let's not rewrite history and make it look like Android was a clear winner from the beginning, back then even iPhone was pretty crap, and Android was that times two.
"There's a very good chance that without it being open source it would have went precisely nowhere. "
Why? You say a lot of things, but none seem to related to why this is true. As far as i can tell, it is definitively not true.
The app developers were happy to go where there was money, and the users certainly didn't care.
Again, i'm a huge supporter of open source projects, i donate to the FSF, etc. I would love for it to be the case to say that Android was a success/failure because of open source. It's just i've seen exactly zero data that supports this notion, and a lot that doesn't.
The real history rewrite here is the rewrite that Android didn't enable choice or competition. Before Android all of the systems you're talking about had user interfaces that were tightly controlled by the carriers right down to the Verizon internet browser. Your best case scenario would be apple winning. Your worst case scenario is you still have Verizon deciding what your phone user interface should be like.
Android was developed via billions of dollars of investment by Google. Google has no obligation to provide a free OSS variant, other than for the parts that are GPL'ed.
If all Google is offering is the complete Android experience (including the App store and all the Google apps,) and not any OSS variant, how are manufacturers limited exactly ? They can either use Android, that is being offered to them for free, or roll their own OS.
This is true but is not relevant to the situation at hand and Google has very reasonable arguments for insisting on this. As far as I understand it, there is no requirement for a manufacturer to ship Google search or the Play Store on an Android device they manufacture. They only require that manufacturers not fragment the ecosystem by breaking compatibility. If you are going to build on the back of the ecosystem, don't break that same ecosystem, and that is quite reasonable. I am sure Microsoft would not tolerate OEMs licensing windows then modifying the Windows APIs on the installed system to break compatibility with apps made by Microsoft and 3rd parties. I am quite sure they would refuse to continue to license Windows to OEMs that did that.
The issue at hand is around what Google requires once somebody wants to license the Play Store. At that point they are required to also ship Google Search as the default which is the problem.
Would you mind rephrasing it a bit, and i'd be happy to try to respond?
I can't see why anyone would ever not follow Apple's model. It effectively immunizes them from antitrust concerns due to low market share, but they still make an ungodly amount of money.
What does Google's model buy them, precisely?
It was a calculated risk that had a handsome payoff, if it worked, which is why it had to be open source, anything short of open source and Android would never have taken off like it did with several handset manufacturers via the OHA [0].
Remember, the context surrounding the need for Android to use an open source model at launch was that they were the underdog, iOS was still nascent but steadily gaining serious market share. The incumbents -- whom Google was hoping to disrupt using the OHA as a trojan horse was Nokia (they enjoyed 73% market share [1] with their Symbian "smartphone" OS) and Blackberry. Nokia would eventually start the process to make Symbian fully open source in 2008 [2], so they could compete better against the OHA [3], but the process didn't complete until 2010[4], which by then was already too late.
IOW, making Android open source was a core part of Google's strategic play to gain market share, there is no point in crying uncle.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian#Market_share_and_compe...
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2008/06/24/symbian-goes-open-source-c...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian_Foundation
[4] https://www.wired.com/2010/02/symbian-operating-system-now-o...
This is actually not why it was done (I was there :P), and didn't really factor very much into the calculation at all. So your perspective, while interesting, was not the one used.
In fact, the business folks mostly thought it would be a downside (given all the FUD/etc around the time period).
Your perspective is also interesting because Apple did not go this route and still were wildly successful. So i disagree it "had to be open source or it would not have taken off". I'd like to believe that (really!), but there is an existence proof that this was not true (Apple), and in the end, i just can't bring myself to think what you say is true.
It was open because Andy thought it was best for the world (really. I realize how cliche that sounds, but if you've ever met the guy, you'd realize it was true. He gave pretty much not a shit about the business side of it, it's not what he enjoyed).
As mentioned, the business folks argued that this model would just lead to a shitty experience (among other things) over time. (This was pre-iphone, so apple was not a consideration at the time).
The compromise was "great, let's figure out how we can make sure that doesn't happen through branding guidelines/etc".
Later, after Apple was successful, the business folks all said "look, this model was a mistake, look at Apple". You could still push back and say "we are doing fine".
I don't see how, in the future, the business folks don't win every argument here.
Apple's model is giving them all the money, with none of the downsides.
This seems like a "business school case study" they would teach in the future.
Yes, it payed off in marketshare, but severely limited the profitability of Android and being another major revenue stream for Google. I hope this decision makes them think twice about their strategy for Fuchsia because they seem to be using the Android model all over again. Google really needs to start operating like Apple for better or worse.
These days I actually feel more comfortable when things aren't free. It means the company's motives aren't (completely) obfuscated.
'open' and 'control' are hard to reconcile.
Excellent development! These platforms weren't "open" in the first place, just pretending to be, so I don't see the problem.
The Android growth phase has been incredibly lucrative for Google (and Microsoft, via patents). Have no doubt they'd try it again today.
And the justice system in the EU is different than in the US. It doesn't mean the next one will be the same.
> The European Commission has accused Google of abusing its Android market dominance by bundling its search engine and Chrome apps into the operating system. Google has also allegedly blocked phone makers from creating devices that run forked versions of Android.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/18/17580694/google-android-e...
> How is it any different
Apple doesn’t have a dominent search engine to push down the throat of device makers.
They also don’t have an iOS consortium nor do work with other makers, so there is no bullying makers into doing what they want “or else”.
As others pointed out Apple is not in a majority position in the first place, but this fine is mainly bound to how the search engine and google suitr services come in the picture, and not on android on its own.
Android being an open source OS is nowhere near as easy to install as a regular linux open source OS.
I've been trying to get my own android / androidTV box working on popular hardware like rPi and other Amlogic, Allwinner, Mali based boards without much success. Even devices manufacturers have troubles with the same (talking about SBCs here).
Android is open source only for name sake. Google's deliberate control over the entire Android ecosystem is undeniable.
Oh, Google, you're willing to share almost everything with anyone for free, but you want to put terms on that? Hey, here's a giant fine.
I just don't understand the logic of this at all.
Firstly, Android doesn't have a monopoly. Apple does fine in Europe and their devices can be bought everywhere.
Secondly, there are device makers that didn't cut a deal with Google, notably the Amazon phones and tablets. They weren't that popular with consumers but that's not Google's fault: it just means consumers highly value the additional services Google provides.
That's the issue though. It seems that Google is being punished for being somewhat willing to work with other makers.
Apple has a monopoly on A9, A10, and A11 based computers.
In their Statement of Objections, the European Commission accused Google of the breach of EU antitrust rules in three ways:
- by requiring mobile manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to license certain Google proprietary apps;
- by preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code;
- by giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
Not sure if the same licensing also applies to Google Play Services - if yes, this might make it difficult to even run the apps without getting the license, no matter which store is used.
1. They should release a heavily locked-down version of Android, which manufacturers and carriers cannot modify - apart from basics like bundled apps, widgets and wallpapers (uninstallable). Update would come direct from Google, and hardware support would be limited to specific components.
2. Make all of Android closed source and shut down AOSP. What is the point of it anyway?
This would solve the fragmentation problem, and be better for consumers since they would get updates quicker and for a longer time. Paradoxically it would lead to less 'choice' for consumers.
The fact is that Apple controls enough of the users that everybody wants that they have at least as much influence as Google does in mobile. That they've chosen to protect their fat profit margins and accumulate the largest pile of corporate cash in history while ignoring customers that can't afford premium devices should not insulate them from similar scrutiny.
If the EU wants to preserve any credibility on these issues they should take a hard look at Apple's refusal to allow other browser engines on iOS.
>requiring mobile manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to license certain Google proprietary apps;
>preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code;
>giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
It's the other way around. EU is building credibility that seems to be lacking elsewhere by penalizing anti-competitive behavior.
Apple is incapable of abusing manufacturers as Apple does not work with manufacturers at all. The entire discussion simply does not apply to Apple.
Google monopoly has very little to do with Chrome bundling and a lot with hardware being kept tight closed to kill any competition: the day we have OSS drivers is the day we can have other OSes (which have been already written) fully working; that will allow also software to be fully usable, creating more competition Google will have to respond to, hopefully with more openness and quality.
Before someone replies that drivers have nothing to do with browser bundling, think about how could Google force you to install anything or use any of their services if your underlying OS and surrounding environment didn't depend on anything from them because it wasn't even Android. Example: https://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/
The fact those parts are closed hasn't stopped people releasing custom ROMs. Google and Sony even help you do this.
https://developers.google.com/android/drivers https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/
Microsoft got into trouble because they forced companies like Dell and HP to make their products feature Internet Explorer.
Google is getting into trouble now because they're forcing companies like Samsung and LG to make their products feature Chrome.
Apple is not getting into trouble now because Apple is not forcing Apple to make their products feature Safari. Obviously iOS does feature Safari, but Apple was free to make that choice. There is no OEM here being bullied.
Right, only the end users are harmed, as it should be.
Apple does not have a dominant market position and does not give away iOS for free.
Making Android free is an anti-competitive practice because it inhibits the formation of a competitive market for mobile phone operating systems. Because Google's practice of making Android free inhibits competition they are not allowed to exploit the lack of competition for profit.
Where is the problem with making Android free?
- has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google's app store (the Play Store);
- made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app on their devices; and
- has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks").
It's not. Be Patient.
It's a plain and simple competition case where Google was exploiting its market position "buy only from us or never from us". Your scenario doesn't make any sense whatsoever. In fact Samsung can produce Tizen phones already and still does as it's not a competing Android.
And? Seems like a valid move (from both moral and corporate perspective) to me.
Its the exact same evil business practicr Microsoft did in the 90s, surprising Google got away with it that long. But also Microsoft wasn't fined until something like 10 years later...
>The free distribution of the Android platform, and of Google’s suite of applications, is not only efficient for phone makers and operators—it’s of huge benefit for developers and consumers. If phone makers and mobile network operators couldn’t include our apps on their wide range of devices, it would upset the balance of the Android ecosystem. So far, the Android business model has meant that we haven't had to charge phone makers for our technology, or depend on a tightly controlled distribution model.[1]
https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/andro...
In your fantasy scenario you didn't consider that the current version(s) of Android running on billions of devices are mostly open source, and there's nothing preventing Samsung, or Samsung + Sony + whoever to take that, combine it with one of the other existing app store and GApps replacement apps (Firefox, some maps e.g. Nokia, etc) and continuing like nothing happened. What are the Android app developers going to do, say "oh well" and settle for their market share shrinking to almost nothing which is what the Pixel amounts to? No, they will publish on the new Samsung app store.
And life moves on. Perhaps Jolla gets a boost, or we see a new or old player try something new.
There is no scenario where Apple becomes a big scary monopoly that wins everything. That's what Google is, and that's why they're being fined.
Apple is a niche player only because they clung to their margins like a bag of heroin and let cheap Android phones eat their lunch. If it weren't for Android they would have zero serious competition.
I find myself in the very odd position today of having for the first time some sympathy with the Brexiters.
Every OEM release of Android is forked so your statement doesn't make sense.
>Additionally, if Google were to move solely into the Pixel space, it would fail, overtaken by Samsung and other OEMs which know how to run a hardware business.
Google doesn't need to confine their OS to just Pixel devices. They can also work with any OEM that wants to ship the Google version of Android and GMS - (Nokia, Motorola, etc). Given a choice, consumers would easily choose a phone running Android with GMS over any other non iOS device. Furthermore, Google could also close source Android and not continue to give Samsung a free OS to cake their services on. The decline of Samsung as they scramble to make Tizen their only smartphone OS would be entertaining to watch.
>And without the big Android bully in the picture, it's likely new Linux-based OSes would find a place to flourish.
Yes, just like all of those desktop Linux distributions have flourished.
>You are forgetting there are dozens of manufacturers who all have large mobile phone businesses
You mean the same ones that can't write operating systems or secure their devices?
Do tell how one could switch out the map from Google Maps to anything else (Bing, OpenStreetMap, whatever).
Or how I could get rid of Google+ without needing to wipe my device or use a zero-day.
Or perhaps how I could get apk files from their repository without agreeing to the Google TOS and privacy policy, and without using some hacky system like Yalp store that breaks every couple of weeks for a little while.
This is definitely not easy to swap out. I bet that even from the top 10% of tech-savvy people on hacker news, there's 9%. that cannot figure out how to remove google completely within a normal working day of 8 hours.
Just install another maps app and set it as default? And just because Bing and Apple haven't created Android apps doesn't mean it's Google's fault.
> Or how I could get rid of Google+ without needing to wipe my device or use a zero-day.
Most phone these days don't even come with Google+, and if they do, no one is forcing you to login. You can disable it entirely.
> how I could get apk files from their repository without agreeing to the Google TOS and privacy policy
Doesn't that apply to almost any software with a license?
It's an interesting question though, because it depends on which 'market' you're talking about. This is a vexed question in antitrust law [1]. There is some pending litigation in the United States as to whether Apple illegally monopolized the market for iPhone apps [2], but it's been brought by app purchasers rather than the regulator, and Apple has taken the case to the Supreme Court to argue that the purchasers don't have standing to sue.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevant_market
[2]: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/apple-v-pepper/
The "happy medium" we have today: where jailbreaking was found to be not illegal, works for as long as we can jailbreak. I note that iOS does now allow sideloaded apps too, though they still must run in the sandbox, but it does mean you can distribute an app that wouldn't be approved for the App Store.
The EU had another workaround: impose a higher import tariff on video game consoles than general-purpose computers. Sony released a Linux kit for the PS2 so they could say the PS2 was a general-purpose computer, not a console. I think it worked initially but because hardly anyone bought the Linux kit (it wasn't sold at retail with the console) the customs people took a look and Sony had to start paying higher tariffs.
I cannot change the defaults in an Android phone and sell it to you. That's the problem.
Notably Google made their own maps app and Apple banned it:
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-screws-google-over-lati...
But it also applied to iTunes competitors:
https://www.engadget.com/2008/09/12/app-disqualified-from-ap...
On Android you can pick whatever apps you want as the default.
Have you tried Google Duo?
> Google must now bring the conduct effectively to an end within 90 days or face penalty payments of up to 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover of Alphabet, Google's parent company.
Considering that, $5B doesn't seem to be much of a fine to be literally on the head of most smartphones in the world.
If they don't change in 90 days, they are fined 5% of their revenue every day. That's a lot.
Because it means that users have to look at alternatives. They might find that they prefer them in the long run, and it might even just incentivize competition to keep going. And this is especially damaging in monopoly-like situations, as many users don't even know of competing products.
But from the governments perspective that defeats the whole purpose, which is to raise funds.
A week would definitely put a noticeable dent in the economy.
> The decision ignores the fact that Android phones compete with iOS phones,
Except as explicitly stated in the decision.
> This is possible thanks to simple rules that ensure technical compatibility, no matter what the size or shape of the device. No phone maker is even obliged to sign up to these rules
Except for the very definition of anti-trust and monopoly and surely just by conincidence totally ignoring the three points.
> Android’s compatibility rules avoid this,
And nobody claimed that was a problem, but whatabout... .
> If you prefer other apps—or browsers, or search engines—to the preloaded ones, you can easily disable or delete them, and choose other apps instead,
Except manufacturers are contractually forbidden from doing that and defaults are so unimportant that google explicitly puts them as contractual obligations...
> Phone makers don’t have to include our services; and they’re also free to pre-install competing apps alongside ours
Don't have to include..exceot if they need access to google play, which is what this whole decision was about...
Can they please hire better PR people? That is embarassing to read.
>Except as explicitly stated in the decision.
Well the EU simply argued they don't compete because iPhones tend to cost more and it's hard to switch. I feel like your average person would admit you have a choice between the two, which is what competition is.
Official release here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm
Yes, it is, which is why the EU commission have a whole section on explicitly why "default install" is still anti-competitive.
Also, I don't think all Google apps can be uninstalled. Either way, I've certainly seen apps from other OEM partners that can be removed. That should outright be illegal within the EU. All apps that aren't strictly necessary for the functioning of the case operating system should be uninstallable.
1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-results/alphabet...
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/external/html/budgetataglance/...
Fines paid to the EU go straight into its own general budget. Combined with the nature of the EU Commission as judge, jury and executioner in cases like this, it is a severe conflict of interest. Member state are refusing to pay more into the budget and the UK is leaving, which will create a massive budget hole. The EU is strongly incentivised to levy fines for vaguely defined, highly debatable "crimes" on US tech firms in order to avoid their own internal political disputes over funding.
The executive fines someone (like you are fined for violating parking regulations), then you can appeal that fine in court, in this case most likely the ECJ.
Would you argue that it's wrong to address a coporation's wrongdoings? EU companies are fined regularly as well, might not create such an upheaval in the US media, though.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/european-commiss...
The EU budget (which is very small for such a big project) will actually increase post-Brexit.
Your comment is totally bogus.
I don't see why EU should "work with google" to make them follow regulations (EDIT: beyond the threat of punishment).
On looking into the judgement however it appeared as though both parties actively sought to subvert competition rules under a disingenuous "veil of ignorance". Warning shots had been fired earlier but the practices continued hence the fine.
I haven't read into the details of this judgement yet but you may well find similar reasoning therein.
While it's certainly Apple's prerogative to play EU states off against each other to get the best deal, it should have been blindingly obvious that what it was getting from Ireland would be, and should be reversed.
What makes you think that they didn't? Have you even read the WSJ article? It says:
"Google, which can appeal any decision, has rejected the EU’s case since the bloc issued formal charges over two years ago."
You are assuming that Google is a poor layman that is accidentally breaking laws. Indeed Google has an army of lawyers and they know precisely well the risk of their actions.
If I went out into the street and 'keyed' someone's status symbol car then I would not be in trouble until someone decided to do something about the crime.
The owner might not be pleased and, pressured by the insurance company, might get the police to go through CCTV and finally find me caught in the act.
Alternatively, a neighbour or passer by might just call the cops on me whilst I 'brazenly commit the deed'.
Either way, unless there is a report of wrong-doing then I would be getting away with it, not having to be fined etc. The police don't just sit there idly looking through the rule book looking what they can nick me for, someone would have to bring matters to their attention.
And that is the problem with this EU ruling. Nobody I know has bought a phone, decided to write to their MP (or MEP) and complained about not having Bing! as their default search engine. The EU don't accept complaints from little people like that anyway.
So what has gone on here is that some group of lobbyists have sought out some money from the Microsofts of this world, invariably to setup some fake pressure group, to bring on this legal action. With previous history, e.g. bundling in Windows, the modus operandi was the same, albeit with Netscape being the whinging ninnys.
Whwn the story finally hits the press the parasitical legal firm, the fake consumer group and who fronted the cash to pay for the action get forgotten, instead debate concerns whether the E.U. is a load of rubbish, being as silly as when they banned bent bananas and had wine lakes or whether Google have been truly evil.
In The Emperors New Clothes the people that sold the expensive invisible thread leave the story so in the final act there is just the stupidity of the crowd and the stupidity of the Emperor, story facilitated by the boy. Similarly here, the people that have wreaked this carnage have left the story a long time ago.
Fining Google 4 billions after they forced all sort of lock-in strategies on the users for a decade is less than a slap on the wrists.
Although, they should have put a fine of $12b (all of googles yearly earnings), effective immediate, and double it every year until non competitive practices ended.
Regarding potential gains, Android has all but cemented its position as the smartphone OS. Microsoft did the same in 1995 with Windows in the desktop market and it has 90%+ marketshare there, 23 years later. It's very likely it will still dominate the desktop market in 2045.
Android will be at least a loss leader for Google for decades to come. And they made $10 billion in profit in 2017 alone (of course not all of it is driven by Android, but you get an impression of the scale).
Manufacturers are limited contractually. This is detailed in the EU press release linked to this thread. Alas, one still has to actually read it or alternatively have some knowledge about how Android is licensed.
Google is exactly in the same position as Microsoft when they were caught red handed doing shitty stuff with the vendors.
The interesting part is both Microsoft and Google prioritized licensing/delivering the OS and associated software, keeping a healthy distance from building hardware. Google tried a bit more with the Nexus/Pixel programs, but even then the target was only for small scale niche devices.
What I am driving at is that once android got traction, Google’s position went way up while vendor’s bargaining power went down, even as vendors where the ones taking the risks down the line. That kind of unbalance makes it easier to have abusive contracts and business practices.
It starts with good intentions (working symbiothically with the makers at innovative products) but things change, and with success I’d guess different kind of people also come into the organization to push more aggressive practices.
It's interesting that Andy was pushing open-source for altruistic reasons, but I'm tempted to think that it happened to also be the best business strategy - despite what the suits thought at the time.
Every business school teaches that IBM made one of the worst business decisions of all time when it licenced the software for its new personal computers from Microsoft. Samsung certainly didn't want to make the same mistake, and an open-source operating system can always be forked so Samsung had a guarantee it wouldn't end up paying the 'Windows tax'.
If Android was closed-source it would have found it much more difficult to get that critical early install base. But with a successful open-source platform it could then develop its closed-source Play service.
To me this one-two punch would make a great business school case study in favour of Android's open/closed-source hybrid approach
As for whether it mattered, honestly, no, i would say didn't. The developers cared whether they could make money, not whether it was open.
I don't see how the license of the software relates to it it giving you a shitty experience or not.
The shitty experiences I had on Android were largely due to carrier and OEM spyware and bloatware preinstalled on devices -- deals Google struck.
I had always attributed the security problems to Google having inadequate terms with handset manufacturers, to keep handsets up to date. Specifically, that handsets could automatically fall back to stock Android if the OEM/carrier didn't want to continue to develop their proprietary fork for that line of handsets. Maybe this is wrong. Maybe it was planned obsolescence with unintended consequences.
That's why project Treble was done.
I also don't understand why the nexus phone line got cut. I guess it wasn't selling well? I can't understand why though. My wife has a nexus 6p and its a great phone that was well priced.
For example, several years ago a Russian software company, Yandex, wanted to make its own build of Android with Yandex browser and Yandex app store. But after they have talked to smartphone vendors, they learned that in order to obtain licenses for Google software the vendors have signed an agreement with Google forbidding them to make phones with alternative ROMs or replace Google software with competitors' software [1].
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/17/google-reaches-7-8-million...
Microsoft tried that and was fairly unsuccessful.
Future folks would likely just choose the Apple model - don't sell the software at all.
There are not any future folks who can adopt Apple's model.
The only viable mobile OSes for the foreseeable future are Android and iOS, unless Android can be trust-busted. Even Microsoft couldn't do it. And they really tried.
If Android can be de-bundled, then Samsung can pursue Tizen, because Google will not be allowed to prevent it. They're the only ones with sufficient resources and market share to have a shot.
Edit: Or, ironically, Google—who are the only ones not bound by Android OEM agreements—with Fuchsia.
To earn money. But of course (without restrictions) there would be more competition, there would be alternative Android builds and, as a result, more software not depending on Google Play Services.
If Google could choose Apple model and be profitable, they would choose it from the start. But there is a big difference. Apple makes their own hardware and is good at it. Google doesn't and maybe they didn't want to take a risk so instead they have chosen to make only the software. Also we should remember that Google came to the smartphone market late when it was already conquered by Apple.
For example, Google has tried to enter laptop market with Chromebooks but without noticeable success.
Even if Google makes Android closed source, it doesn't mean that there would be no open platform. Maybe someone will continue developing Android, or some other OS, maybe someone will make a Linux distribution for smartphones.
Google Play links on websites are not the problem because on Adroid an app can use App Links [1] to start an alternative store instead of opening a Play Store page in a browser.
[1] https://medium.com/@ageitgey/everything-you-need-to-know-abo...
The Play store is the crown jewel and protecting that massive revenue stream is paramount, it could well become the most important software market in the world.
-Developers -Customers -To be able to survive on fees less than it costs for a credit card transaction -To be installed on something better than Android
And you call all this easy? ;-)
Once that happens, copy cats will pay manufacturers to preinstall, leading to customers, leading to developers who want to tap that still uncrowded market. And once multiple app stores bootstrap, a price war is inevitable - margins of 30% would be undefendable since they would be passed on to the consumer who would switch to a cheaper app store.
It's very clear why Google would want to prevent such a race.
With 'root' access, it's possible to remove them via a superuser app or adb - or it used to be the case.
It's deliberate to kill competition while not being in a dominant position, and then when in a dominant position, continue the trajectory by defining defaults.
The Apple apps are dominant partially because of the abusive rules the app store had earlier. It's quite clear from the fact that in any area where Apple did not have a default app, they are unable to match what the free market offers.
But Android claims be FOSS. I understand that "using google servers" != "the AOSP project", but there's a large number of apps whose only publication channel is this ubiquitous play store, because the devs know that practically everyone who has Android will opt into the google kingdom as well. If it was closed source like iOS and if you can't even sideload apks (or ipas or whatever they are) then I'd not be surprised that I have to agree to some near-monopoly's TOS and privpolicy in order to get access to 99% of the published apps.
If google starts to charge for android then i am sure there will be manufactures selling phone without OS. I would be 100% up for it.
That Android would be free if you replaced the non-free parts by free ones is obvious and does not make it actually free.
> Also many people buy windows license separate from their device. Google surely does not want situation where people buy google services license... they want mass adoption for data collection.
> If google starts to charge for android then i am sure there will be manufactures selling phone without OS.
None of this matters for the question at hand which is if Android is free.
At 2018, talking about yet another Mobile OS beyond Android/iOS is just pure nonsensical fantasy. The game is over, if Google going to charge Android, the manufacturers will not be happy, but they will pay and pass the cost to consumers.
Even Google used to have maps versions that targeted those platforms, before they went with Android.
They did. Google didn't comply.
They are just sour that their precious tech companies are being brought to task for behaving like shitty house guests by not following the rules.
These companies might be able to get away with whatever the hell they please back home but get this; the American Way isn't the only way.
It's just a very shitty dismissal of the very real concerns of US tech companies and their disregard for the laws and regulations in the countries in which they operate. Laws and regulations that EU companies have to follow too.
The only real upset here comes from companies like Google, and their rabid supporters at the prospect of them not being able to implement their shitty consumer-hostile, ring-fencing business model in other countries.
Google were given two year's notice before this fine. TWO YEARS.
It's their own damn fault and the fine is punitive, as it should be.
American multinational tech companies suck a ridiculous amount of money from the rest of the world.
The US would rarely do anything to harm their corporations. The latest govt is literally “A govt for corporations, by corporations”.
My guess is that Google considers itself American.
and that absence of loyalty is reciprocated. Google isn't doing me any favors.
if Google disappeared tomorrow someone else would step into replace them. and i wouldn't care if they headquartered in Buffalo or Barcelona or Beijing.
The US market was always an anomaly and under tight carrier control. There the iPhone and Android enabled choice. This is however mostly irrelevant for the EU and especially for this verdict. It's undeniable that there are now fewer choices and competitors available, and that most of the ones that are gone have been killed by Android: Windows Phone, Blackberry, Symbian, Meego, FirefoxOS, etc.
If free was all that mattered then one of the other smattering of "free" open source mobile OSes would have taken off. You can perhaps say that free is a necessary condition but it clearly isn't sufficient. Something else matters and to a first approximation that can be thought of as "goodness".
As for your problems installing it on other boards, where are the drivers for them? Your classic desktop installation comes with drivers for almost every laptop/desktop board. Android doesn't because the vendors don't contribute. A snapdragon SoC requires a binary blob from Qualcomm. There is nothing you can do without it. It has nothing to do with AOSP being opensource or Google controlling it (Google controls other aspects, AKA the Play Services).
Trying to get the xda builds and LinageOS working properly is subjectively speak—difficult and heavily device dependent.
I’m not sure about x86 images, but arm are heavily device dependent.
Would love be proved wrong. I’m looking for android images actively.
In order for device manufacturers to get the Play Store on their phone, they have to give in to Google's demands to add the Google search box on the home screen of the phones.
Apart from this, Qualcomm doesn't release open source drivers for GPUs etc, making it even harder to use pure AOSP on flagship devices.
What's wrong with this? The Play Store is subsidized by search revenue, it makes sense to tie them together.
There's a bunch of SBC manufacturers (pine64, odroid, orangepi, etc) worldwide that have managed to compile AOSP for questionable hardware. However, it is noteworthy that almost none have been able to compile images for Android 7.1 and above that work without hiccups.
And this is just one example, there are a hundred more things that are in the proprietary google suite, without which you'll be able to install only a few of the apps available for the platform.
The Google apps and the app store are not open. Everything else is.
And now the EU Commission thinks that this is an unfair (due to market share) agreement, because it prevents competition. (Which is trivially does, since no OEM can start making and marketing and selling a competitor.)
The EU is not structured like that, and thus doesn't have to win any prosecution. Margrethe Vestager just issue a proclamation with a number she and the Commission picked out of the air, and the deed is done.
Neither is the US. Numerous state and federal agencies have the right to directly levy civil penalties. You have the right to challenge those penalties in court, as you do in the EU.
Second: Google can appeal in court. It’s exactly the same as it is in the US.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/google-paying-apple-3-billio...
But generally, this is a step in the right direction. As much as I am a fan of early Google and the great services they offer, a big part of me doesn't like the privacy-nightmare conglomerate they became.
I would be sad if google was beaten out of existence (seems unlikely I know) even though my permissions are probably being abused by google and their effect on me all in all may not be great. However, it makes me happy to see that the EU is working on making google better.
As a person getting caught stealing/defrauding/etc. you would have to pay restitution and additional fines/time in prison. This is how it should work for businesses to. If the goal is to actually prevent future abuse.
A private individual is expected to return all illegal gains, pay additional fines, and possibly do prison.
But a company might be expected to pay fines that are actually a fraction of the profits made abusing the law. This means paying the fine is more lucrative business than ceasing the abusive behavior.
As such the system only gives the appearance that it's working when in reality it's just not bringing the expected benefits. If paying the fine and keep skirting the law is cheaper than fully complying than that's what companies will do.
No, it had a monopoly on IBM-Compatible computers, which is a category that includes multiple OEMs that sell compatible machines.
Apple doesn't have a monopoly on any market category where more than 1 player (Apple) is involved.
quote: "The District Court determined that Microsoft had maintained a monopoly in the market for Intel compatible PC operating system"
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/253...
Apple has no monopoly on any hardware market where they are not the only one. They cannot dictate terms to any other OEM manufacturing A10-compatible computers.
Apple currently pulls in an astonishing 87% of mobile profits. Why on earth should they be excluded from anti-trust scrutiny?
https://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/apple-rakes-...
Take Safari as a case in point. Apple doesn't allow other browsers on their platform which means webdevs have been limited to the parts of the web stack that Apple supports. Which, until recently, was falling pretty far behind the state of the art.
Apple might be breaking other laws, but not this one. Google is breaking this law. Hence the fine.
how iOS handles things are completely irrelevant here.
Microsoft tried buying app support and it didn't save their mobile platform. It generally resulted in crappy apps that were never an ongoing priority for their creators. If anything it cemented the status of the OS as a second class citizen.
You can try every way you like, but nothing completes the picture than to say that there were good things about Android that made it survive as the competition to iOS where everything else failed. The OS being "good" (on a relative scale, there were obviously some bad things about it) is, like everything else, necessary but not sufficient.
In my view, the real reason Android succeeded is because it was customisable by the OEMs. They were staring at a future where they were completely locked out of doing any customisation of operating system and totally at the mercy of Apple. They would do anything to prevent that future and Google gave them a lifeline to do so. That customisability was a byproduct of Android being open source, but obviously Google could have made it closed source to the public but licensed it to OEMs with a proprietary license allowing customisation too. I think the latter wasn't viable because it would have required too much trust in Google.
The commission and national (European) regulators are investigating ~150 cases every year, most of which none of us will ever have heard of.
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/ecn/statistics.html#2
The ones I know about have all been the result of a complaint made by competitors. I would be surprised if the regulator could selectively reject such complaints without good reason.
Who else do you think they should pursue instead?
We can prosecute equally for jaywalking, but anti-competitive behavior gets worse the bigger the offender is and/or the worse offense they commit. So in that way it makes sense to prosecute "top-down", that is go after the biggest ones first.
That's at least what I prefer as an EU member state citizen and consumer.
Following that logic, the same applies to law in general. Should we therefore abolish law?
The only way to do is to use revenue, but judges should still consider the business profit margin.
The size of the fine is based on the violation type and size, revenue and a case-by-case evaluation, as company finances vary wildly.
The problem is businesses may take it as a signal that the EU is against foreign businesses rather than against monopolistic practices, in which case the thing being deterred is doing business in the EU rather than monopolistic practices. To show otherwise they would have to levy equally large fines against local businesses engaged in the same sort of practices, which they haven't and likely won't.
If they really wanted to signal discouragement of monopolistic behavior rather than a cash grab they would be ordering specific conduct rather than excessive fines. For example, if the issue is that they promoted Google Chrome in an unacceptable way, prohibit them from distributing Google Chrome in the EU for five years. And then do the same thing to Microsoft just to be even-handed, because they're still bundling their browser with Windows. And likewise with Apple and Safari.
Let everyone use Firefox for five years and see how much browser bundling happens after that.
And if that actually restores competition then you don't need a five billion dollar fine.
You do understand that doing that would probably cost those companies (and everyone else) a lot more?
We only want a level playing field. Giving companies a real fine is just a way to make sure the board and the shareholders actually gets the message ;-)
It's punishment. If somebody wants it then somebody has a perverse incentive.
> You do understand that doing that would probably cost those companies (and everyone else) a lot more?
Exactly. You actually punish them, in the way directly contrary the the goal they were trying to achieve with their bad behavior, without suspiciously enriching yourselves in a way that calls your true motives into question.
> We only want a level playing field. Giving companies a real fine is just a way to make sure the board and the shareholders actually gets the message ;-)
But what message are they getting?
It's not as if there is a clear roadmap for how to avoid this sort of thing. Antitrust laws are super vague and prohibit a wide variety of common business practices, to make it effective to use them against powerful nefarious entities with many lawyers. The theory is that the government will only use them against bad actors. But if the government considers you a bad actor just because you're a foreign company, what are you supposed to do then?
> it should have been blindingly obvious
and yet, it took a deep-dive investigation by the commission with a team of specialists to untangle it.
And blindingly obvious to Apple, the benefactor.
When somebody says, "Hey come and do your stuff here, we'll only charge you 0.005% corp tax!" you should expect that their wider financial governing body (who is losing out severely because of a deal like that) might have something to say about it.
You saw that thing in the ICIJ Jersey papers leak where Apple went round the world actively seeking jurisdictions that would twist their tax rules to suit them?
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/apple-s-cash-mountain-ho...
It certainly IS NOT. When Apple "get's a deal" it is by definition market manipulation. You're not supposed to "get a deal" regarding taxation!
The same taxation rules must apply to every company or else there is illegal subsidy. The whole idea around "making a deal" on tax is horrendous anti-capitalist BS.
It's exactly the same as "making a deal" wrt the law in a corrupt country. A corporation "making a deal" by having government look away when they do something illegal, or getting their competitors fined on dubious charges.
Apple, Google, Microsoft, and basically all of those companies ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH for not refusing do to business with the market-corrupting Irish Republic.
Also, two wrongs don't make a right. Microsoft getting off way too easy does not mean that Google should get off easy, too.
There are lots of cheap Chinese Android phones simply filled with malware from the factory.
If Google allowed phone makers to ship Android forks, this whole problem would become a lot worse. I think this Google policy is actually pro-consumer, and the EU is wrong on this point.
No, I don’t think that reducing choice and locking them in Google’s ecosystem is pro-consumer, even if done for the right reasons.
Let’s remember that Android was welcomed by many of us as a free (as in freedom) alternative to iOS.
If you want a locked-down, secure and polished OS, then Apple’s iOS is far better at this game. The only reason why Android is dominating the market right now is because it gave freedom to users and freedom to phone makers. And Google dialing that freedom down after becoming so popular is anti-competitive.
It’s essentially a bait and switch, which is why I believe Google deserves that fine.
Besides the fine maybe Google should also be forcing existing installs to provide a choice?
This is the most clearly anti-competitive practice.
Google supports AOSP and has done so for years, making it available freely. Why shouldn't they be able to dictate their own terms? If phone makers don't like it, they can make their own OS (which they have - and they all suck).
> Google has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks").
Hence the fine.
You cannot have something open and control it at the same time.
> Market dominance is, as such, not illegal under EU antitrust rules. However, dominant companies have a special responsibility not to abuse their powerful market position by restricting competition, either in the market where they are dominant or in separate markets.
> Google has engaged in three separate types of practices, which all had the aim of cementing Google's dominant position in general internet search.
If you don’t have a monopoly and do things your partners/competitors don’t like, they can’t complain that you are abusing a dominant market position to get away with it.
There’s nothing wrong with bundling. But when you have a monopoly on the market bundling suddenly is wrong and abusive even if it’s the right thing for your end users.
So we see time and again monopolies are knee-capped in the market and face these absurd fines, in the name of fairness and competition.
I have no doubt that some monopolies leverage their market dominance for some pretty atrocious dealings. I personally see nothing wrong with Google licensing the optional (but extremely popular) Google Play services such that it requires Google Search and Chrome along with it.
If they were unrelated then the experience of Google Play Services would be identical with or without the other pieces (Chrome and Search). I don’t use Android so I can’t say for sure, but I’m quite confident that the overall experience suffers without all three pieces together.
Easier to say sorry than to ask permission, right?
iOS can do exactly what android does without any penalties.
You can't. If people are not forced don't write down exactly whether they spent their time on working for the main unit or the side units units, you can't later account it correctly. Unfortunately it's not even clear for the company what happens sometimes. You might for example hire an employee, but place him in a different business unit than originally planned. Or the employee later on changes business units.
The other problem with this is even if you require such a strict accounting setup, you can't tell whether employees and/or departments are accounting their efforts correctly, it's just incredible difficult to enforce the rule; to make sure they don't lie. Even if you think hey you can do it, you have to rigorously enforce this for all companies in your juridiction, because as soon as you stop looking, they will stop caring.
So the problem is you can't tell the profits before "internal investments" as long as you can't pin down operational costs.
You'll see that the only thing that you can accurately account for is the main business units revenue, but you can't give a precise number on operational income. (Which is revenue - product costs - operational costs).
There may or may not be overlap on many of these but there's never a 1:1 relationship between any of them.
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1492_en.htm (fifth paragraph)
But for this case, they are using a definition that makes Android even more dominant: they allege that Google restricts device manufacturers' freedoms. And from a device manufacturer point of view, Android has a 90+% market share of "licensable smart mobile operating systems", with "licensable" being key: as a device manufacturer, you cannot use iOS, so that doesn't count if you buy into this line of argument:
In particular, the EU alleges that if you want to install Google Play on your phones, you need to sign a license agreement which also forces you to: a) install Google Chrome; b) make Google Search the default search engine; and c) not sell phones with Android forks at the same time ("Anti-Fragmentation Agreement").
They want to force Google to allow manufacturers to more freely chose which apps to pre-install and also to be able to offer Android forks in parallel to "Google-finish" Android.
I'm not sure if this will really be good for consumers... I would argue that most smartphones have too much crapware on them, not too little. On the other hand, the Microsoft Internet Explorer unbundling case arguably helped fuel the success of Firefox in breaking the IE dominance, which I would argue was good for consumers.
* Symbian
* Palm webOS
* Mozilla (I think that was also called WebOS?)
* Jola
* Some blackberry thing based on QNX that "supported" Android apps
* Tizan
* Windows Phone
* Ubuntu PhoneThese days it feels like most people have given up trying to compete against Apple and Google.
These alternatives mostly suck but "your competitors suck" is not grounds for an anti-trust violation. No phone vendor is forced to deal with Google, that's an absurd distortion of the facts. Even if they feel their own in-house engineering abilities are so weak they can't make a better platform than Android, they can still take the open source code and use it as a base, providing their own mapping and app store along the way ... just like Apple do.
[1]: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-king...
[2]: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/liechtenste...
[3]: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/monaco
It gets much worse depending on the country:
Google bundling their Search with it is just pushing their own agenda.
http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-stat...
I was surprised by this figure, but it doesn't look true based on cursory google search?
OS/2, Linux, Apple, BeOS, etc.
Stifling innovation? How? The "web space" didnt even really exist.
It is similar to today, respectively we have even less choice, we have two platforms, out of which one is mostly a lifestyle company and has a minor market share of ~20%, whereas the second is dominating the market at ~80%
The EU text talks about requiring chrome and search if the play store is installed. As a user of android, I cannot think of any way in which these are linked. I don't see why the play store wouldn't work without those two, or would even lose a single feature.
I suggest reading this:
(And it's not just an abstract "what if I want to shoot my own foot off" issue. Consider e.g. sandboxing, which by its very nature kills interoperability. In a non-sandboxed environment, you can write code that forces two applications to interoperate, whether their authors like it or not. In a sandboxed environment, you're limited to what vendors allow you.)
I kind of agree with them, actually.
You'd just have to give several huge, clear warnings of what that means before allowing it.
And, by the way, security? Come on, if they really cared about the security/privacy of their users the permissions' systems would not be made of those huge blankets that are more like websites' cookie banners than real useable security controls.
Worldwide is at 77% http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide/#...
Poland (#6 in the EU by population) is at 97% http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/poland/#mon...
Most foreign companies aren't considered bad actors.
We are talking about 1) the old Microsoft here - definitely a bad actor - getting rid of it seems to have been refreshing even for Microsoft shareholders.
- 2) Google, a company we many of us loved at some point but who might now be in need of some refreshing at least in some areas.
Google wasn't considered a bad actor until then they were.
> the old Microsoft here - definitely a bad actor - getting rid of it seems to have been refreshing even for Microsoft shareholders.
The old Microsoft deserved everything they got and then some. But even then, it would have been nice for the penalties to be more "actually effective in increasing competition in PC desktop operating systems" and less "suspiciously convenient transfer of large sums of money."
The alternative (where they are considered a bad actor before they were) seems a lot worse ;-)
I think EU might even have cut them a good slack here based on their previous status as good guys.
> and less "suspiciously convenient transfer of large sums of money."
In a EU perspective I think we'll find this doesn't matter much to them.
That's basic proportionality.
I'm saying that when you get a deal this good —however you ended up there— you should not be surprised when it turns out that it was illegal.
Of course Apple shopped around. But if somebody offered to sell you $20 bills for half a cent each, would you suspect something dodgy? That's the scale of the issue here.
It's bleedingly obvious that it's illegal to be taxed differently than other companies. Paying back €13bn is nothing.
Companies that "make deals" on tax anywhere in the world should be effectively banned from the EU market. It's pure evil. Or pay 10x of any gain they have made anywhere in the world by "making deals" on tax, thereby undercutting fair competition in a free market.
But saying "hey, that's obviously corruption" isn't enough. We need a good way to restructure tax collection so that the right people get it.
Multinationals paying Luxembourg (Paypal, eBay) or Ireland (Apple, Amazon) for all revenue and operations from the entire EU is wrong, no? How do you fix that?
This is just a drop in the ocean for the total amount of wealth that is protected with these schemes. In the $20 for ¢0.5 picture this probably amounts to ¢50. They're still making off with the other $19.49. Though arbitration would probably round that up.
An acceptable loss.
"The Irish government agreed a deal with Apple in 1991 to only tax a certain bracket of its earnings" http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-apple-managed-to-get-its-t...
To me it's pretty obvious that Tim Cook will burn in hell :-).
Though tax avoidance was a corporate strategy and they actually sought these deals it would not have been obvious that this was technically illegal. The Irish Revenue Commissioners told them it was legal as an interpretation of Irish law, which was incorrect.
I would say that the biggest reason it's dominating is because it's cheap. For most people I've talked to, they don't like Android, but prefer to pay 20% of the cost of an iPhone.
Seems like you're projecting your own expectations onto what Google has really been selling all along. Google doesn't advertise Android as "free as in freedom." OEMs comply with their conditions. It's how it works.
Andy Rubin in 2010 speaking on how open Android is:
>the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"
And as far as “free as in freedom” goes, the US law agrees with me via “estoppel”.
Using your reasoning, Microsoft could never have had a monopoly on Windows because you always could have bought a Mac.
You can't define a monopoly as "your competitors aren't popular" because otherwise it'd be illegal to invent new product categories, as at the start you'd be the only player in the new space. You can't define it that way for another reason: it punishes success.
As the sibling comment rightly says, monopolies are acceptable. But, as the EU clearly point out, a greater onus is put on monopolies to avoid abusing their monopoly power.
> Nevertheless, the Commission investigated to what extent competition for end users (downstream), in particular between Apple and Android devices, could indirectly constrain Google's market power for the licensing of Android to device manufacturers (upstream). The Commission found that this competition does not sufficiently constrain Google upstream for a number of reasons, including:
They are not punished for their behavior in the downstream market (in which they barely participate). They are punished for their behavior in the upstream market. We consumers do not participate in the upstream market.
Nevertheless, the EU commission considered whether the lack of a monopoly in the downstream market ameliorated the monopoly effects in the upstream market and found it did not.
There are.other mobile OSes available as well. I'm sure Microsoft will gladly let you use their OS for the right price, KaiOS, Ubuntu phone OS could be resurrected, you could role your own, I'm sure Symbian is for sale somewhere, how about Meego.
If you want to have Google apps on your phone you can't sell any forked android version.
Like, own all cinemas in a country but home-viewing keeps profit low, so now it's fine to only allow people to visit your cinemas if they buy clothes from your clothing company?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage#/media/F...
15% vs 80% these days. And thats the "developed world", globally it was around 2%.
The up and comer is KaiOS, used on super low-end phones in India. Its a version of the Firefox OS.
Take the HQ app for just one recent high profile app out of countless other examples.
Maybe it’s different in some other markets but this is simply irrefutable in the USA and anybody trying to argue otherwise is just being disingenuous.
Edit:perfect->problem
That is entirely tautological. It omits the reasoning under which that spectacular amount of irreparable damages have actually occurred to consumers.
"They have a lot of money and we would like to have that" is not a valid method of calculating damages.
the fine has been calculated on the basis of the value of Google's revenue from search advertising services on Android devices in the EEA.
In other words, Google had an unfair advantage for search on android devices and leveraged that into revenue. The fine is a percentage of that ill-gotten revenue.
There’s an official guideline for calculating damages when anticompetitive behavior is found: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52...
"They have a lot of money and we would like to have that."
The actual "damages" have nothing to do with their total revenue, only the revenue incident to the behavior in question, which is an independent value and not a percentage of total revenue.
For example, if they improve their search engine which causes more people to use it, it doesn't change the actual amount of damage from separate actions -- it may even reduce it by transitioning some of the defaulted users into users who would make an affirmative choice in their favor -- but it would have increased the amount of the fine when calculated as a percentage of revenue because it would have increased their total revenue.
Google knows that most manufacturer needs their devices to ship with the Play Store, because that's where the apps are and smartphone without apps are useless. But they use the Play Store as leverage, forcing manufactures to also ship Chrome, rather than Opera, Firefox or their own browser and that's the bit that is illegal.
Imagine that Apple forced telcos to block Spotify, to force users to iTunes, and if they didn't then no iPhones on that carriers network.
That being said I don't think Google is using the Play Store to force installations of Chrome or the Google search app, that's just weird. People would install Chrome anyway and they already dominate search, so why bother. I think the reason is technical, but the end result is still illegal.
The same goes for Samsung and its own browser, simply called "Internet": people often have heard of Google Chrome but won't go looking if there's a working "internet button" right in front of them. Other vendors use the same trick.
Personally, I would think this is a good thing as it takes away some of the monopoly Google has, if Samsung etc. would just give their browsers regular updates through the Play Store/their own app store (latest version I can find on the Play Store still uses Chrome 59).
There is no technical reason to install the Google app or to install Chrome. Vendors can easily install their own WebKit/Blink engines for all the WebView/technical requirements (as seen by alternative ROMs) and the Google app can be deleted without affecting the other Play Services.
I think this is a ploy to prevent companies like Microsoft from coming with their own ROMs that focuses on Microsoft applications (Cortana, Bing, Edge mobile, Outlook, Microsoft Office etc., MS have a near complete stack of applications for Android) without offering any pre-installed competition like Google does.
Which only serves as strengthening Chrome's position (Chrome being a I/O vector for Google's ad market).
> and they already dominate search, so why bother.
Which obliterates any chance of a remotely widespread alternative emerging. The homescreen search bar is technically a widget like any other yet it is the only one that cannot even be removed from any stock launcher!
Imagine a manufacturer whose part of its proposition (whether through deals or genuine customer interest) is for whatever reason to sell a phone that comes loaded up with Firefox (or Opera) and has Bing (or DuckDuckGo, or Qwant) as a search widget. This is currently impossible and the decision aims to change that. The fact that Google uses its Android - because there is no viable alternative platform - and Play Store - because without the apps the platform is useless to the general public - dominance in the phone market to strong-arm manufacturers into preloading extensions of its search and ad market is a huge issue, turning the "Google experience" on Android into an all-or-nothing proposition.
But there is a related yet more subtle issue that isn't addressed: log into the Play Store, and you're helpfully logged into all other Google services such as Gmail, Chrome, Calendar, Photos... The only thing you can subsequently prevent is automatic syncing, but cannot disable each one of those services at all (unless you disable the whole app). So basically you log in to download whatever app on the Play Store and you turn on a huge firehose aimed at Google's datacenters. As an Android user the feeling I have of the "Google experience" is one of coercion, not freedom.
BTW your iTunes/Apple Music example is interesting, although it could be developed further to better match the situation.
Doesn't Apple already do this with the App Store? You can't buy an iPhone with Spotify pre-installed and Apple Music can leverage its position of not having to give another company a 30% cut to undercut spotify's prices.
Google is forcing installations on Samsung phones, LG phones, etc through their contract.
It is entirely possible what Apple is doing would be illegal IF they licensed/sold the OS to other OEMs.
Of course once you have the device you can do whatever you ... can. Similarly once you have your Android phone you can install an alternative browser.
In fact I have had Samsung phones with two app stores and two browsers. Guess which one was was I unable to delete without rooting the phone first?
I am not a fan of whataboutism, but in this case it just seems unfair that the creator of a (more) open ecosystem is taking all the beating.
Note: I actually hate the search widget as well as the assistant, but there are hundreds of alternative home screen apps.
Honestly your comment is pretty much kindergarten level argumentation, so I think that maybe you should just take your ball and go home.
The question was regarding to the logic behind why Google is getting fined, while Apple is not, and I think I answered that question pretty well.
The EU laws around this are also worded as such. You can do anti-competitive behavior all you want if you're not a major player because you'll just be shooting yourself in the foot.
The problem here is that Google allegedly dictated terms that gave them an unfair advantage in an unrelated market, breaching EU antitrust law.
A stricter antitrust law might have prevented them from gaining such a dominant position in the first place, but that doesn't seem to be the issue here.
IF Google had manufactured all of the phones themselves, and had never open sourced Android, then they could have kept Chrome and Search on Android, and there would have been no problem, right?
But because Google let other people manufacture Androids, and because Google open sourced Android, now it's a problem?
The logic of this is just baffling to me.
And secondly, they're not being punished for having an open source operating system. They're being punished for forcing manufacturers to install their suite of software (simplified). It's not because they open sourced Android. I repeat, it's NOT BECAUSE THEY OPEN SOURCED ANDROID.
That doesn't mean it is wrong. =)
For context they also push Google search to iOS devices (Apple gets huge amount of money for that), the same way as they pay firefox to have Google as their default search engine.
The issue though, is that for android phones, it's not a "let's make a deal, we will pay you to have Google Search" attitude. You can't make an android device integrated with Google Play app store without also having Google Search in the home screen and as default search engine.
What the EU is fining among others, is the business practice of forcing device makers that want to use the Play Store to also bundle the other service (Search).
(I guess you could say that didn't see this coming, but the parallels with MSFT and IE are pretty hard to not see...)
The fine is going to hurt a lot more than any remedial action.
The profit isn't from the direct sale of an Android device, it's from the system the device is a gateway to.
The particular problem with the EU is that it's a system of "good faith" agreements that has until quite recently been quite weak against cynical attacks.
This kind of dealing undermines the spirit of the EU accords and you can expect it to be dealt with in the course of time - probably through tax harmonisation, which wouldn't then be a million miles away from the american model.
You are not supposed to be able to get special privileges to your company to the detriment of your competitors.
There can be no free market when justice (and thus taxation) is not blind.
Capitalism is a perfectly good system of economics and I look forward to seeing it in place some day.
If you sort public companies by Market Capitalization, how far down the list do you think you need to go, before you find a company that is only in one market?
It's not hard to become a phone maker these days, judging by the sheer number of Android OEMs that are out there (hundreds, I believe). If there was huge untapped demand for Android sans Google then a new company would appear, they'd download the Android code, they'd go to Shenzen and do a deal with a white label manufacturer, and they'd make such phones. Google wouldn't stop them because they'd be a company that doesn't make any other kinds of phones.
We know this is possible because there's one huge market where that's normal, China. Google's services are blocked in China anyway, so there's no point adding their app store or mapping apps. Local firms produce local versions of Android for their own market and it works fine. We also know this because Amazon tried it and they weren't sued or anything.
There are also open source spins of Android that have custom app stores like F-Droid. A new phone maker could ship those too.
The EU commission doesn't think so. Their press release* says that 80% of smart mobile devices in Europe, run on Android.
Basically, all you have to do, is hurt the market in noticeable ways. The sole goal of antitrust laws is keeping the market healthy. They're not fair and have almost no rules attached to them.
No it isn't. But your attempt at refutation is.
> Android doesn't have a monopoly. Apple does fine in Europe
Apple has its segment. Android is pretty much everything else. It is "dominant" in the market.
> Secondly, there are device makers that didn't cut a deal with Google
The complaint relates specifically to access to google play services.
Now go look at who are making phones on this base: Samsung is the most popular but it doesn't have a monopoly.
Is the EU going to fine ARM next for having a monopoly on mobile CPUs?
Having a monopoly or being in a dominant position is not the problem. If ARM starts a pizza business and requires everyone who wants to buy mobile CPUs to also order pizzas exclusively from them, then this would be an equally-fineable abuse of a dominant market position and the EU would almost certainly step in.
As it stands, ARM doesn’t force others to buy pizzas exclusively from ARM PIZZA PLACE and hence doesn’t abuse its dominant market position in one market (mobile CPUs) to support its position in another market (pizzas).
Google, on the other hand, uses its dominant position in the "licensable mobile operating systems" market to support its position in the "internet search" and "browsers" market together with anticompetitive behaviour forcing its licensees to exclusively use the Google-approved version of Android.
They're using a dominant position in one market to push services in an unrelated market. That's anti-trust 101. And they punish suppliers who don't tow the line.
This is exactly the same as the MS anti-trust case. Swap IE for Google Web Services (Search/Maps/Chrome) and swap Android for Windows.
If ARM started forcing phone companies using their CPUs to only sell to AT&T, that's your analogy. As it is, because ARM don't force unrelated services or products on their customers, it's not analogous.
Have ARM used their dominant position in one market to reduce competition in a different market?
Maybe? Is there something about their business practices that shapes the market to their benefit? If so, and there are enough complaints then maybe not "next" but yeah.
ARM do not sell any CPUs. the CPUs in mobile phones come from Qualcomm, Samsung, Apple, etc.
As an independen device maker, you wouldn't be able to put iOS on your devices. Android has a huge margin over other viable alternatives.
They also have the option to write their own OS anytime they want.
It does have a dominant market position though, and that's what's in the legal stuff that they're being fined under. You do not need a complete monopoly to have a dominant market position.
> Secondly, there are device makers that didn't cut a deal with Google, notably the Amazon phones and tablets. They weren't that popular with consumers but that's not Google's fault: it just means consumers highly value the additional services Google provides.
More than that though, they effectively stopped device manufactures from selling these (because of exclusivity agreements), and a lack of range isn't going to have helped amazon:
> For example, the Commission has found evidence that Google's conduct prevented a number of large manufacturers from developing and selling devices based on Amazon's Android fork called "Fire OS".
It's crazy to say a product only succeeded because Google pushed it hard. Google (and Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) has a LONG list of failed products they pushed hard (Wave, Google Plus, etc).
Did it play a role? Sure. But prominent advertising is not the same as forcing hardware manufacturers to pre-install software. Nor does it suddenly make customers want a shitty product they wouldn't otherwise use.
The thing they were fined for was
>[Google] has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google's app store (the Play Store);
How is the Play Store related to the Google Seach app or to Chrome? One is an app store, one is a seach bar and one is a browser. They have nothing in common and don't interact in any meaningful way (except perhaps the interaction between the Google Seach app and Chrome, but that relation isn't part of the ruling).
This is clearly Google using the dominance of the Play store to push other, completely unrelated apps.
>zero customers want a vendor to do anything different
The first thing I do with a new phone is to try to get rid of that google search bar on the home screen (I open a browser to seach the web ...), I don't use mobile chrome, and I prefer rooted CyanogenMod / LineageOS over stock Android. So I am clearly impacted by all three offenses Google was fined for. I suspect I am not the only one.
If the revenue related to wrong doing is in the billions and the harm is in the thousands, attempting to prohibit the conduct instead of imposing a small tax and using the money to compensate the victims is obviously a large dead-weight economic loss.
Firefox and IE were riddled with code debt issues so they couldn’t move fast.
Chrome was a great example of software written by a company with resources to dominate a huge market segment relatively quickly. I’m guessing Chrome earned Sundar Picchai a lot of good karma within Google to later become CEO.
For instance, by default, the installer for AVG's free antivirus program would install Google Chrome and make it the default browser.
It's only a problem when you squeeze out competition by doing exclusive contracts with all major distributors in a particular distribution channel.
Chrome's quality was a necessary, but probably not sufficient condition for it to gain the market traction that it did.
Firefox has rapidly improved since it's inception and was rapidly stealing IE market share prior to Chrome.
Had Chrome not been rammed down people's throats then we might have a more even landscape than we do today.
When doing PC support for layusers, I've found that: Most people don't know what Chrome is, and don't know the difference between it, Edge, IE, and the malicious Chromium fork they have installed on their PCs. (Side note: May the soulless individuals behind the "WebDiscover Browser" suffer a life of misery and despair as punishment for their crimes.) They end up with Chrome (or a malicious fork thereof) due to a bundle installer.
It's a bit shady to make it 'automatically the default browser'. But that is a problem with the OS. An installer shouldn't be able to make that choice for the user.
I mean, you really could have said the same thing about IE 4 when it came out. It was actually better than Communicator at the time, which was a bloated, unfocused, mess of a browser.
It's hard to find news and reviews from 1997 to back me up, but here are a couple accounts I found recollecting their experiences with the browsers: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Netscape-lose-ground-to-IE
Equally, IE was far superior to Netscape when it came out ;)
This is not to say Chrome is (now) the inferior browser but saying their marketing push has nothing to do with its market share is ignoring reality.
On the other hand, building "web" apps that only run on chrome, that was a shocker for me.
Wow, I wasn't aware of this. Do you recall any examples?
I don’t think we should dismis doing what customers want and try to find reasons for succes only from marketing.
With Chrome Google kind of repeated what they did with search.
- They're not, and the attempt to claim they are part of a mobile "suite" is the same sort of obfuscation Microsoft used when they argued a web browser (IE) was an essential part of a desktop OS. This ruling seems obvious to me.
How is a web browser not an essential part of a desktop OS.
Literally every single consumer operating system comes bundled with a web browser, and in fact everyone bundles their own
OSX: Safari
ChromeOS: Chrome
Windows: Edge
But of course to an Android buyer, it is all a part of the experience with the device. They know what to expect and what is there.
"he same sort of obfuscation Microsoft used when they argued a web browser"
And Microsoft was right. Windows has Explorer or Edge. It still does. The EU giant fine did absolutely nothing but made them realize that cashing in big on American companies is essentially free. Of course I still download Firefox, just as you can do on Android.
“Related to” does not mean that they are the literally same thing. They are clearly related as a suite of applications which form the core experience of what is called “Android”.
The law doesn’t say that if it is technically possible to unbundle a set of options from a product offering to be sold al la carte that companies must do that.
These are all essential components of one product — a mobile OS. Mixing and matching, for the vast majority of users, is neither practical or expected, and absolutely negatively impacts the brand.
Microsoft should be delighted then that they can force Internet Explorer on everyone again.
> They are clearly related as a suite of applications which form the core experience of what is called “Android”.
That argument doesn't hold for Chrome. The core experience of Android is the AOSP browser (aka Android Browser). Later Google started to use their monopoly to force the inclusion of Chrome alongside Android Browser, followed by the removal of Android Browser in Android 4.4.
And even now, the only reason Chrome is part of the "core android experience" is because Google pushes hard to make it that way. There are plenty of other good mobile browsers.
>These are all essential components of one product — a mobile OS
But Google doesn't licence the OS. They donated the OS to Open Source, and use their licencing agreement for the App store to control unrelated parts of the OS experience
I'm using Android every day and never once opened Chrome (instead I'm using the Lightning browser) or used the Google app to search (I'm just searching directly in my browser). So IMHO that's definitely NOT the core experience of Android, while the Play Store is.
Firefox has over a 100 million downloads according to the Play Store, so that argument at least doesn't work for bundling Chrome.
Well then, that's your choice, and with that you admit to belong to some 0.0001% of Android users who are willing to open up their phones to all kinds of security exploits, and reduce its value to some laughable percentile, as is known, with CyanogenMod / LineageOS most of the good part go to hell, camera goes to hell, performance goes, ... and you get what? Glowing aura of open source user
All that goes to hell because Google prevents almost all first party support for LinageOS (or any other forks), which is why Google gets fined now. In a theoretical world where Google didn't do the things they are fined for, LineageOS might work much better on a wider range of hardware and thus have much more mainstream appeal.
Because BMW don't have market dominance in either the car industry or the entertainment system industry. If they used dominance in one to affect the other, they would be in breach of that legislation.
>This is absolutely not at all clear cut. It is incredibly nuanced
So how do you explain Google's non-compliance when explicitly and clearly informed that they were in breach over two years ago?
If, for example, BMW _did_ become an extremely successful car manufacturer to the point where they were capturing >80% of the market, would they suddenly no longer be allowed to bundle their own entertainment system with their cars?
Of course the size of the company and the market dominance comes into play here. It's not a monopoly if people can go elsewhere to get their engines, it is if there is only one realistic choice of supplier (Android).
Yes, that's exactly what monopoly abuse laws are for.
Fire OS and my personal phone which is running a Google-free version of LineageOS would like to have a word.
> And if we just go around clubbing everything coarsely, why does my BMW have a BMW entertainment system?
BMW doesn't have a dominant market position it could abuse. Neither does Apple or any other company that Google is commonly compared to in these discussions.
Somehow these false-equivalences seem to be most common among people trying to push the "unfair fine" narrative.
On top of that you claim that because there are other companies/products that are in breach of the law - at least according to your misreading of it - this somehow makes the word of the law less clear cut in this case. Which just doesn't make any sense.
Let me throw your own words back at you: "you are not really thinking about it [your arguments] much."
Hilariously, you just made the parent's point for them - you yourself said you aren't running Android but Fire OS or LineageOS. Android, the product, comes with Chrome, Google Search, and the Google Play Store. If you want Android, you have to take all of Android. If you want to run something else, go for it, but then it isn't Android.
Android is a separate software project that is developed separately from Google Play Services. The Android OS works perfectly without those installed.
There's no "Chrome, Google Search, and the Google Play Store" in the Android repository. Especially since Android is open source, and most of the latter APKs are not.
I suggest to actually have a look at the a android project before making claims like these. This page is a good place to start: https://source.android.com/setup/
Google has worked very hard to integrate their app suite at such a deep level with Android to the point that they can steer what can be done with the OS just by using that one lever.
Anyone paying attention in the past decade will remember plenty of complaints about the GApps infesting Android.
But yes, if just looks at the situation as it is today, they could be excused for thinking that everything is normal.
I don't really mind about the Google Play Services thing (as it probably benefited people overall), but the contracts with OEM's were always wack, and I'm pretty happy that the EU has (eventually) fined them for this literally textbook anti-EU competition law behaviour.
BMW is not forcing BMW to install a BMW entertainment system.
BMW can install whatever entertainment system BMW likes.
Google is forcing other phone makers to install certain Google apps. The issue is not with what Google does for their own products, but what they force other phone makers to do. That is the key point—this ruling wouldn't (or shouldn't) apply to Google's own Pixel products.
Now if Bosch was forcing BMW to install Bosch windscreen wipers as a requirement on any car with Bosch collision avoidance systems, there you might have a valid analogy.
Google also claimed that this ruling would hurt open source projects in favor of “proprietary platforms”, but everything that provides the “Android experience” - Google Play Services and the binary drivers - are closed sourced.
It is incredible seeing Google being seriously attacked on here for have an open source path as well. I feel like this is some sort of alternative universe.
This is incredibly (deliberately?) misrepresentative. They are being punished for having a monopoly and (ab)using that. If Apple/iPhone had an 80% market share in EU the commission would be gunning for them instead, e.g. because of their closed ecosystem preventing competition.
Exactly. The takeaway from this seems to be to not open up your system a little bit, because then you'll need to go all the way. Whereas e.g. Apple, which built a completely closed phone system from the start, doesn't get any trouble (even when it dominated the smartphone market). Really backwards ruling. And I say this as someone who happily switched to an iPhone to escape Google's data collection.
It's not because Google has open sourced Android (which they _had_ to because of the GPL used by Linux). The fine is for protecting their own marker by blocking others from using that open source software.
Because BMW has not entered an abusive relationship with a dominant player in the car entertainment system market who would only license the popular system to BMW on the condition that 1) BMW won't develop their own version, and 2) will bundle other software packages also developed by the dominant player.
BMW is the manufacturer, not a licensor, so it's a slightly different scenario, but let's say that dealers are somewhat equivalent to manufacturers. You raise a good question or two:
1. Does BMW forbid dealers from replacing the factory entertainment system with an Alpine system? Or do they just assume nobody will, since it's already bundled in the car?
2. What is BMW's share of the automobile market? (i.e. how close to a monopoly are they?)
Offering the open source Gallery app is the "Android experience". Offering Google Photos is not the Android experience, but the "Google experience". It's different.
> zero customers want a vendor to do anything different
Citation needed. I mean I don't want the vendors to add bloatware to a smartphone, just like I don't want Google to add bloatware (like the search bar or the News app). But that doesn't mean I wouldn't like actually innovative features. And even if I as a "stock Android" fan, that doesn't mean everyone is.
For the US market it might be different, as it is one of the few markets where Apple is still the clear leader.
In general, when you see an example that explains a complex issue you should assume that it is significantly simplified and therefore will not be realistic.
It's very normal that a company B would want to go to company A, if A already have a lot of expertise in Android. For instance a POS manufacturer might want to collaborate with Sony or Samsung on an embedded device which uses Android internally (without the GApps & stuff), but Sony and Samsung are forbidden from dealing with B.
Even Amazon would be happy to outsource some Android development to e.g. Samsung but they can't.
However, Sailfish is available only as a post market firmware.
Being a derivative work of AOSP courtesy of libhybris, it would seem Sony are prevented from factory installing Sailfish on any future Xperia device.
Note that for the purposes of this ruling, the relevant dominant position isn't in Android, but the Google Play Store.
As I posted elsewhere:
Couldn't Google have had Samsung OEM phones?
With co-branding?
And all of the profits going to Samsung?
This would merely be a different way to structure access to Android, right? Android is closed source, but literally everything else is the same...
Except now it's not "anti-competitive," because the phone manufacturers are not "competitors" to Google.
If
1. Android still reached 80% of market 2. Terms of OEM prohibited Samsung from making phones with another OS
That would be the same anticompetitive violation
The terms would say that Samsung installs the version of Android 2 (the new and closed source one) that Google tells it to. As manufacturing partners are always told what to do.
To this day Google is pushing their browser if you dare to use their services with Edge.
The problem is that by not giving the choice makes this anti-competitive behaviour. What’s wrong with giving Samsung the ability to make a deal with Yahoo to install Yahoo as the default in their Android phones?
If they claim it’s all part of their integrated experience, then they should provide the necessary APIs/SDKs for other search providers to integrate properly.
We’ve been over this before, it’s anti-competitive behaviour, and it lacks choice.
Only if the device is advertised as being an Android, which is a trademark that you cannot use without Google’s agreement. You can’t use anything Google related actually, besides AOSP, so I don’t see how Google can make that argument with a straight face.
And on Microsoft... they could easily block any competition just like Apple is doing on iOS. That you are able to install Firefox on it, be thankful to previous antitrust fines they got ;-)
And this deal was approved by the EU and it specifically grants a monopoly to Airbus for European rocket manufacturing and launch.
The point is that the EU doesn’t care that much about monopolies— they care that much about American tech monopolies. It’s economic populism. I am not saying anything about the merits of the Android case, only pointing out that the EU doesn’t pursue EU companies with as much vigor. €5 billion is a significant payday for the EU — especially when that money comes from an American company.
"Google has used Android as a vehicle to cement the dominance of its search engine. These practices have denied rivals the chance to innovate and compete on the merits. They have denied European consumers the benefits of effective competition in the important mobile sphere," Ms Vestager said.
Plus email-SPAM(!!!) about installing Chrome when you signed in to your Google-account on a new computer using a non-Chrome browser.
It also used dubious wording: “You need to upgrade your browser. Click here”
And paying to have it bundled as a drive-by installation with other software.
And Chrome-only websites. And the list just goes on and on.
It was spyware tactics + SPAM all over the place. And the sheer amount of it was mind-blowing.
Even technical people who explicitly didn’t want Chrome had a hard time avoiding it. Imagine the effect on regular, non-technical users.
Saying it was all down to technical merit is just appoligist and delusional.
With Chrome’s dominance and semi-monoculture undeniably in place, Google is now using that position to force new things, like subverting open web-standards with DRM.
I can’t believe people are so non-chalantly allowing this to happen.
Microsoft does force Internet Explorer cum Edge on everyone. They never stopped. When the EU forced them to offer a trivial "justify a giant fine" selection tool it did essentially nothing in regards to browser share. It keeps getting cited as the precedent, and while it is in the "EU makes some fat bank" way, it did absolutely nothing for consumers. And that's for an OS that was tremendously more entrenched, whereas I recently swapped out my GS8 for an iPhone 8 with nary a hiccup (and as an aside still enjoy all those Google services).
There is so much bullshit happening throughout this discussion.
Elsewhere people are claiming that Chrome became popular because Google pushed it on their homepage, which is just ridiculous, revisionist nonsense. Chrome became popular because it earned word of mouth as a lighter, faster browser. It exploded. The same happened with Firefox. Because the platform was open and allowed you to choose whatever you want to run. Just as I can and do run Firefox on Android.
Further, vendors/carriers only abuse the right to put in alternatives. It is traditionally called crapware.
As is your version of events. As with all extreme points of view, the truth lies somewhere towards the middle.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263445/global-smartphone...
Most phone makers don't because customers prefer the Google services, but that's not Google's fault. They have provided OEMs with options - options they didn't need to give anyone, apparently, given that non-licensable operating systems like iOS aren't being whacked the same way.
The most Google can do is give away their OS as open source and let people do what they want with it. If they then sell a bundle of extra proprietary stuff on top, stuff that customers want, that can't possibly be more problematic than making everything proprietary.
After all, Apple doesn't even let third party devs from the app store take over the default mapping app: map links always open in Apple Maps regardless of user preference. For the longest time they wouldn't even let apps that competed with their own be developed at all. On Android you can replace the dialer and even the home screen.
I do understand why people are defending the EU here: they like its ideology and vision of the future. But trying to claim Android is some sort of market abuse when Apple's own approach apparently isn't just defies basic logic.
a) Android has market share dominances (likely around 75% in Europe in 2018)
b) iOS is not made available for other companies to use
You could make arguments that iOS behaves unfairly to third party developers and end users, and there are some decent arguments to be made there, but none of them are relevant to antitrust law because a) means there is no market dominance to abuse with, and b) means there are no competitors to be abused.
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You said "Most phone makers don't [skip Google services] because customers prefer the Google services, but that's not Google's fault". I think this gets to the heart of the disconnect between your stated position, and the legal reality here (IANAL though).
If Google's services are supreme because of user choice, then Google should require no legal arm-twisting to push those services onto devices.
Instead, what has happened is that Google has over-reached with its Android services contracts (one example - if you want to use Google services on one Android phone, you can't make a second Android phone that uses your own services), and that is what the EU is tackling here.
The different stories people are telling here about why Google is "abusive" don't correlate with the realities of how Android licensing actually works.
Also since when is 75% market dominance? 75% is popular but that's still a quarter of the population successfully choosing an alternative.
- by preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code;
- by giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
I cant do more than provide the numbers my statements are based on. Please go and check that before you make wild allgations about lack of evidence or empathy.
Android’s rise to dominance was mostly because of partners like Samsung.
Personal preference but Samsung phones are the only ones which I see are comparable to latest iPhones in terms of speed, features and price.
With co-branding?
And all of the profits going to Samsung?
This would merely be a different way to structure access to Android, right? Android is closed source, but literally everything else is the same...
Except now it's not "anti-competitive," because the phone manufacturers are not "competitors" to Google.
This is so back-asswards.
This is not an open/closed dichotomy. This is a free/controlled market issue.
Microsoft can never let the marketing people stop having control and ruining their products. They are trying to make it more useable and user friendlier, but it's funny seeing the push back within the product.
Windows 10 telemetry is a great example: They shot themselves in the foot PR-wise on an otherwise excellent operating system, chasing a pile of metadata that won't really be significantly more useful than what they get from people who voluntarily agree to be Windows Insiders. There isn't a good business case for preventing people from shutting off error reporting, and it's had a huge impact on mitigating all of their other efforts to repair their image.
However, the point was that Chrome didn't mysteriously gain market share solely based on some sort of technical superiority.
Google paid to gain market share with the sorts of clueless users who click next during install wizards without reading anything.
Although, it helps to remember that in the EU, you don't need nearly as big a market share before their competition law kicks in and places restrictions on your behavior, so things that you can still get away with in the US can be quite illegal in the EU.
The Play Store is the one and only problem as the replacements are nowhere near close in functionality or popularity.
Recently KaiOS was gaining traction and what did google? Virtually bought their presence/dominance there… sorry "supported project".
It's a shame, really, because Windows 10 is a decent OS, and it fixed most of the issues with 8.
It doesn't matter how much goodwill a specific department might have, power struggle and department differences always end up impacting it.
Of course, saying it's a part of the Android/Google Experience is from the average consumer. You know that you have the Chrome browser if you so choose. Yes, you can go to the Play Store and install Firefox. Unlike on iOS where the browser alternatives are facades.
(Im a Googler, but that's not particularly relevant to this comment)
The home screen icon is one of those hooks but by far not the only one. If I hide it or never press it, that implies exactly nothing about whether or not code from the app gets executed while I use the phone.
I know ecosystems make corporations a lot of money and some people prefer them. And they can choose an iPhone or Pixel.
Further, if Apple were to decide, tomorrow, to release iOS as open source, would they also be in violation of the law (possibly depending on their motivation?)
The law often hinges on intent along with action, that's hardly novel.
That's so 1997. I would argue that a desktop OS isn't essential to my web browser. All I want my phone or my desktop computer for is to browse the web (not me but that's true for the vast majority of people). All this nonsense that comes with the OS is peripheral. Not essential. The only thing my phone or desktop needs to do is turn on, connect to the web, and download facebook.com and any other website I want. That's it. That's essential. Network card: essential. Web browser: essential. Any so-called computer without a network card is as good as a brick to me.
The idea of a Web Browser being "essential" to an OS is to mean that the OS itself would not be complete without this specific browser, which is in fact not true. Whatever combination of OS + browser you elect to use, or of you eschew the common OS parts in favor of it being entirely browser based is your choice.
That is the contention when Google, and also when Microsoft, try to claim that their respective browsers are essential to their OSes. (Before anyone tries to call me out, yes, Apple is just as silly with iOS, but at least they attempt to have some very fragile ground to stand on regarding performance)
So the argument isn't that a web browser isn't essential to modern day computing, it's that the OS itself does not need a built in one to be complete, or any specific browser to realize its goal of being an OS.
MS argued that the specific web browser IE was essential and I think that's the type of argument that is problematic, both for MS and Google
Internet Explorer and the Windows shell were the same code. There's a reason why until this day the Windows shell is `explorer.exe` - it and `iexplore.exe` (IE) were the one and the same. You could open a file explorer to C:\ and then type in `msn.com` in the address bar, and the PC wouldn't blink.
The short answer, at the time anyways, was that you could just delete it to no consequence. It was just another program.
Some of the phones do "need" a browser as they provide it as a feature to apps, so things are a bit murkier now.
And there's the WebView component, that's part of the SDK, that's essential, and it can be a dependency, or it can be bundled into the APK. (There's even https://crosswalk-project.org/ that is basically new WebView for old phones - Chromium built for old phones.)
Regarding the 75%, please bear in mind that that is across the total market, which covers a very broad range of price points. Apple may have ~25% share, but that is skewed almost entirely to the top end of the market. In the low end of the market, Android would be nearly 100%.
Does anyone know what the contracts contain?
IT actually exists to help ensure people can do their job, and do their job faster. As a general goal, I like to learn about people's business processes for the exact purpose of seeing how our IT environment can be improved to expedite their work.
And having five browsers on a PC doesn't make it easier for end users. I have no problem dealing with five browsers, but I get a lot of complaints from people when they open link A in browser B and link C in browser D and don't understand why things don't work.
You may have experienced poor IT departments in the past, or thought you experienced poor IT departments because you didn't understand the other considerations in play, but that's hardly an excuse to assume any given IT choice is some sort of attempt to prevent employees from doing their jobs.
Software developers often didn’t bother testing or ensuring that their software would install (or even run properly) without admin rights.
If Google manufactured all Android phones, and Android were closed source, and Android came pre-installed with the Play Store, Search, and Chrome, I think it wouldn't be a problem, right?
That turns this into an open/closed dichotomy.
That’s what they’re doing here, just like MS did in the 90s with Windows licenses.
It's plausible that Android would have nearly as many users.
Google, for instance, could have all of the current manufacturers agree to OEM their Android devices. Possibly with co-branding.
I suspect that when a lawyer uses "essential and inseparable" they do not mean the same thing a technologist would mean. The GPL itself doesn't use that language, and anyway it's trivial to argue that a full OS distro isn't "based on" (the language of the GPL) the kernel itself.
Also, you could actually uninstall IE. That only uninstalled the shell, not the libraries (as there were dependencies) but it was gone in terms of the application.
That's a faulty assumption right there. Usually, people providing workers with their computers and software have limited idea what those workers actually need to work efficiently. This works out fine when workflows are defined so well a trained monkey could do the job, and fails miserably when the worker needs any sort of creative control over their workflow or work output (programmers, designers, all sorts of engineers and technicians, etc.). Most corporate work is probably closer to monkey level than to creative level, but enterprises love to do company-wide policy changes, making all work conform to lowest common denominator.
> You may have experienced poor IT departments in the past, or thought you experienced poor IT departments because you didn't understand the other considerations in play, but that's hardly an excuse to assume any given IT choice is some sort of attempt to prevent employees from doing their jobs.
I've experienced one competent IT department in my life, and their best quality was helping shield our programming team from policies like application whitelisting or limiting admin access, that they were forced to deploy company-wide. For other IT departments I dealt with, most of their actions were explainable if viewed through the lens of caring about the infrastructure to the extreme - that is, "if no one uses it, no one will break it" approach.
You accuse me of making a "faulty assumption" about my own environment, and then proceed to assume that you can speak for most/all IT environments.
When I state "if you need Chrome, we'll provide Chrome", that's true of my environment. It's also true of my environment, if we don't provide Chrome, and you find a way to install it yourself, you'd be violating policy, and barring the casual mistake of not knowing that, potentially referred to HR. Obviously, in the ideal "don't need to involve HR" case, we just make sure you can't install it.
Now, what isn't just true of my environment, but true of all environments, is that users installing random web browsers is incredibly dangerous, and something every IT department should be preventing if they own the hardware. I don't think that's even a controversial statement, I'm confused why it's being treated like one.
Mechanics bring their own tools frequently but their employers don't try to repo their personal vehicles just because the mechanic used the same tools at home and at work
Even in a BYOD environment, an organization should be ensuring any devices granted access to resources are appropriately patched and secured.
