Antitrust question with regards to the EU and handhelds

[Sniperfox47]

Question for those of you in the EU following along with the lawsuits being targeted at Google for antitrust violations.

 

Why does Google's sale of Google Play services as a package (The Play Store and Firecloud backend being bundled as a package with Chrome, Keep, Google+, etc) constitute anticompetitive practices in any way?

 

Thhe fact that those units are a single package does nothing to prevent other manufacturers from implimenting their own API compatible version of the services, nor does anything about the ecosystem actually mandate that they impliment them. You can use Android without any of Google Play services, as shown by Amazon's devices.

 

But I mean even if they didn't have that, how is it literally any different from any other OS distribution?

 

You want to put Microsoft Windows on your device? Wordpad, Notepad, Character editor, the Windows Store, Windows S mode, all of that comes as a package that you have to impliment.

 

You want to put Ubuntu on a device? It's lisenced as a package containing the Ubuntu Software Center, the Gnome desktop, and all that other goodness for the commercial lisences that end up on devices like what Dell has.

 

You want to put iOS or MacOS on your devices they also come with a bunch of packag... oh no wait you don't even have that opportunity as a device creator.

 

Why is it so "anticompetitive" that Google bundles some software not even needed for an OS as a package, while OSes can be distributed as a single package entirely and that's okay?

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

37 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Question for those of you in the EU following along with the lawsuits being targeted at Google for antitrust violations.

 

Why does Google's sale of Google Play services as a package (The Play Store and Firecloud backend being bundled as a package with Chrome, Keep, Google+, etc) constitute anticompetitive practices in any way?

 

Thhe fact that those units are a single package does nothing to prevent other manufacturers from implimenting their own API compatible version of the services, nor does anything about the ecosystem actually mandate that they impliment them. You can use Android without any of Google Play services, as shown by Amazon's devices.

 

But I mean even if they didn't have that, how is it literally any different from any other OS distribution?

 

You want to put Microsoft Windows on your device? Wordpad, Notepad, Character editor, the Windows Store, Windows S mode, all of that comes as a package that you have to impliment.

 

You want to put Ubuntu on a device? It's lisenced as a package containing the Ubuntu Software Center, the Gnome desktop, and all that other goodness for the commercial lisences that end up on devices like what Dell has.

 

You want to put iOS or MacOS on your devices they also come with a bunch of packag... oh no wait you don't even have that opportunity as a device creator.

 

Why is it so "anticompetitive" that Google bundles some software not even needed for an OS as a package, while OSes can be distributed as a single package entirely and that's okay?

Google Play Services underpins the majority of apps, it can be installed by itself, however Google forces OEM like Samsung to install the rest of the application like G+, Gmail, Chrome as default system applications in the their contract.  This is anti-competitive, as Samung phones have their own apps, and want to create their own experience but they cannot.  Alongside this Google have their own devices that are in direct competition.  Android devices are pretty much the same hardware wise, the only differentiator is price and experience.

 

With regards to your example, amazon devices have their own version of android OS, own api, and own store.  The majority of Android Apps are not on the Amazon Store.

 

Windows, Ubuntu are base OSs, allow any application to be put on top.  You can actually uninstall their respective stores.  You also have choice is desktop OSs

[Teddy07]

EU is corrupt and full of bullshit

- Question answered -

[Peskanova]

36 minutes ago, Teddy07 said:

EU is corrupt and full of bullshit

- Question answered -

Rather "eu" policies than usa  
corrupt and full of bullshit well what country isnt? i think usa is worse and dont look at south of any  

[Sniperfox47]

47 minutes ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Google Play Services underpins the majority of apps, it can be installed by itself, however Google forces OEM like Samsung to install the rest of the application like G+, Gmail, Chrome as default system applications in the their contract.  This is anti-competitive, as Samung phones have their own apps, and want to create their own experience but they cannot.  Alongside this Google have their own devices that are in direct competition.  Android devices are pretty much the same hardware wise, the only differentiator is price and experience.

 

With regards to your example, amazon devices have their own version of android OS, own api, and own store.  The majority of Android Apps are not on the Amazon Store.

 

Windows, Ubuntu are base OSs, allow any application to be put on top.  You can actually uninstall their respective stores.  You also have choice is desktop OSs

But I mean at that point Samsung can just choose not to use Google's services. They have their own app store which they're already allowed to have alongside Google's app store. Because apps use Google Play Services? Why should Samsung be in any way entitled to the app ecosystem Google has built? There's really nothing stopping Samsung from creating their own app Ecosystem any more than there was anything stopping Apple or Google from creating their ecosystems originally when they brought out their devices.

 

In fact others have shown that they can bring out their own devices. Look at Jolla with Sailfish which doesn't have have Google Play Services, or even Android itself for that matter, but has compatibility with Android apps. Look at Amazon who's brought out several devices that are based on Android but use only their own ecosystem. And even with no relationship to Android you have companies like Purism (Purism phone) and Canonical (Ubuntu Touch) working to bring completely independent ecosystems to market doing all the work Google and Apple did in the first place.

 

You're right that the majority of Android apps are not on FireOS. But why should Amazon be entitled to them being?

 

And Android also allows any application or entirely separate application stores to be installed... even on devices with Google Play services. Literally any Android compliant device can install MiKandi, Amazon store, Yandex or many many others.

 

How does the fact that nobody else is willing to put the effort into building out all the APIs and software that Google is lisencing entitle them to use Google's APIs with their own OS?

 

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

5 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

But I mean at that point Samsung can just choose not to use Google's services. They have their own app store which they're already allowed to have alongside Google's app store. Because apps use Google Play Services? Why should Samsung be in any way entitled to the app ecosystem Google has built? There's really nothing stopping Samsung from creating their own app Ecosystem any more than there was anything stopping Apple or Google from creating their ecosystems originally when they brought out their devices.

 

In fact others have shown that they can bring out their own devices. Look at Jolla with Sailfish which doesn't have have Google Play Services, or even Android itself for that matter, but has compatibility with Android apps. Look at Amazon who's brought out several devices that are based on Android but use only their own ecosystem. And even with no relationship to Android you have companies like Purism (Purism phone) and Canonical (Ubuntu Touch) working to bring completely independent ecosystems to market doing all the work Google and Apple did in the first place.

 

You're right that the majority of Android apps are not on FireOS. But why should Amazon be entitled to them being?

 

And Android also allows any application or entirely separate application stores to be installed... even on devices with Google Play services. Literally any Android compliant device can install MiKandi, Amazon store, Yandex or many many others.

 

How does the fact that nobody else is willing to put the effort into building out all the APIs and software that Google is lisencing entitle them to use Google's APIs with their own OS?

 

1. Android is an OPEN SOURCE project, and has had multiple contributors throughout the years.  Even Samsung has contributed to the AOSP at some point.  It is not a closed system. 

2. This is chicken and egg, the majoirty of phones on the market are Samsung, 33%+ of sold Android devices to date were manufactured by them, they made Android mainstream with the Samsung Galaxy S2.  The problem here is that Google want to be able to gather as much data on data subjects as possible so they force every OEM who touch the play store to keep the other apps.  As someone who owned the Htc Hero on 1.6 Donut, there was 1 google apps, the play store and that is how it should have stay.  They are now forcing OEM to offer the Google not a tailored Android experience.  That is why it is anti trust. 

 

 

[Sniperfox47]

11 hours ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

1. Android is an OPEN SOURCE project, and has had multiple contributors throughout the years.  Even Samsung has contributed to the AOSP at some point.  It is not a closed system. 

2. This is chicken and egg, the majoirty of phones on the market are Samsung, 33%+ of sold Android devices to date were manufactured by them, they made Android mainstream with the Samsung Galaxy S2.  The problem here is that Google want to be able to gather as much data on data subjects as possible so they force every OEM who touch the play store to keep the other apps.  As someone who owned the Htc Hero on 1.6 Donut, there was 1 google apps, the play store and that is how it should have stay.  They are now forcing OEM to offer the Google not a tailored Android experience.  That is why it is anti trust. 

 

 

How is the fact that Android is open source relevant in any way. Samsung has contributed code to Android sure. And they're free to use that code. They in absolutely no way need Google Play Services to make use of  that code that they've contributed. Google Play Services is just one of several available API ecosystems they could impliment on top of stock Android, not that they even need to have any in the first place.

 

So argument is that because Google distribute a part of their OS as an open source project it's anticompetitive for them to bundle other apps with their store then? But if they had a completely proprietary operating system it would be okay? How does them providing part of the OS as open source make their system package anticompetitive?

 

If they removed AOSP, delisenced it, and offered only a single treble system image for developers in order to follow the same distribution scheme as other OSes how would that make the project more competitive? Them changing to the same model that every other OS manufacturer uses would *decrease* the ability for others to offer competitive solutions, not increase it because it would prevent companies from having that software base to start from.

 

And with regards to point 3 I'll then repeat... so then how isn't literally *every* OS an antitrust violation? Why is them giving developers some freedom somehow worse than them giving developers no freedom?

[AntiTrust]

16 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

 

I havent been following this case (now I will) but is this not similar to the famous Microsoft antitrust suit about them bundling IE into windows? In the USA the case didn't go anywhere, but in the EU microsoft to this day still has to include other browsers (like chrome, firefox) into their OS packages. 

[Bsmith]

1 hour ago, AntiTrust said:

I havent been following this case (now I will) but is this not similar to the famous Microsoft antitrust suit about them bundling IE into windows? In the USA the case didn't go anywhere, but in the EU microsoft to this day still has to include other browsers (like chrome, firefox) into their OS packages. 

yes it's kinda the same like that.

 

@Sniperfox47I haven't been following the case myself really, but I believe it came down to the fact that manufacturers are freely able to use android, even without all the google apps(chrome, g+, the play store etc) However that is for the standard version of android, if I'm not mistaken it was mostly about the part where devs get forced to include all these applications if they want to make changes to stock android, like putting their own skin on it or their own app store.

On one hand it makes it easier since you don't need to make another account since the google play store is there, but on the other hand it keeps other players out of the market.
If apple (for example) would start to license IOS or mac OS, then they would be running into the same issue, although by keeping everything to their own they are able to get away with it, since they can't dictate other manufacturers on what they can and can't do(since there aren't any)

So just like Microsoft with the webbrowser issue, google has to give people the choice of what they want to use if there are more contenders, instead of forcing both options to be there. Just like IE got enforced although there where other options available.
Ofcourse it's a logical choice for a manufacturer/developer to try to enforce their own service, although(by eu law/logic) they should allow others too in the field and let the consumer have it's own choice, especially if they basically all do the same stuff, work the same and the product/platform has a major marketshare.

[Sniperfox47]

8 hours ago, AntiTrust said:

I havent been following this case (now I will) but is this not similar to the famous Microsoft antitrust suit about them bundling IE into windows? In the USA the case didn't go anywhere, but in the EU microsoft to this day still has to include other browsers (like chrome, firefox) into their OS packages. 

The difference here is that they're not preventing OEMs from adding other third party browsers into their OS. Or from advertising them to users. Other browsers can be put on the device by the OEM see the Samsung internet browser. Other Browsers can even be put on the device homescreen by other OEMs again see the Samsung internet browser. They just require that these Google apps are displayed prominently on the home screen in a certain orientation. This is literally no different than how Microsoft bundles Wordpad and notepad and character map and calculator and Photos and all of that with Windows and puts them in the start menu in a specific place.

 

You're also talking about a period of time where IE was also setting up proprietary web extensions and refusing to support the web standards that we're starting to open up in order to shoehorn people into future adoption of IE. That was a big argument for why it was anticompetitive, they were using the default implimentation of IE and it's support for proprietary standards such as ActiveX, AVI video support and... Silverlight was announced but not yet released... to try and force players like Chrome, Firefox and even Safari out of the market. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. That's super anti-competitive.

 

And again I repeat that all of that is only even a thing if developers want the Google play store. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from lisencing Yandex for their device. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from lisencing the Amazon store for their device. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from making their own store. In fact there are several OEMs who have already done this before and are continuing to do this *including Samsung*.

 

6 hours ago, Bsmith said:

~snip~

There is nothing forcing manufacturers to include Google apps if they modify Android. Nothing whatsoever. This is a case about requiring them to have other Google apps if they have Google Play Services (including the Google Play Store. OEMs are throwing a tantrum because if they want Google's Play Services API framework on top of Android they have to also include all the other system tools with it.

 

This is roughly analogous to Microsoft releasing the NT kernel, Onecore and OnecoreUWP, the UI frameworks, visual studio and .net, the login and init systems, and all the other inportant OS stuff as an open source platform to help facilitate device makers, then lisencing them the rest of the OS package on top of that.

 

I mean even if they don't want to lisence any of "Proprietary Windows" they could have a full OS where a user can download software from online wherever they want and install any standard Windows app. They just wouldn't have Wordpad (Keep), Calculator, Character Map and Windows IME (Gboard), Edge (Chrome), Photos, the Windows Store (Play Store).

 

But they could either:

 

impliment their own. Or lisence existing ones like Yandex for a store, Swift for a keyboard if they don't like the stock AOSP one, the default AOSP calculator which is basically identical just not Material Design, etc.

 

Or lisence the proprietary part of Windows and imploment it. And even if they did do this, with Android they're still allowed to add all their own modifications and changes as long as they put the Google stuff in it's standard place instead of fucking with it.

 

My point is if Microsoft started releasing a cut down version of Windows that devs can pliment however they want that doesn't make the full version of Windows any more or less competitive. The version of Android without Google play services is basically Windows 7 Home Starter, but where the OEM can customize it however they want. The version of Android with Google Play Services is basically Windows 7 Pro but where the OEM can add whatever they want as long as they don't remove stuff. The Treble system images are basically Windows 7 ultimate but where the OEM can't add any spyware or bloatware to it before releasing it to users because it's a signed system image.

 

 

[KhandakeF]

On 6/8/2018 at 12:47 PM, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

force every OEM who touch the play store to keep the other apps.

The main problem I have with this part is they do this for devices that really don't have that much storage space to begin with, ie 8gb, 16gb

 

Yes I'm talking about lower-end phones. So with them already having less space to begin with, OEM apps reduces much-needed-space even more, mostly with totally unnecessary apps

 

This is not just google btw, and not just talking about the play store

[AntiTrust]

9 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

The difference here is that they're not preventing OEMs from adding other third party browsers into their OS. Or from advertising them to users. Other browsers can be put on the device by the OEM see the Samsung internet browser. Other Browsers can even be put on the device homescreen by other OEMs again see the Samsung internet browser. They just require that these Google apps are displayed prominently on the home screen in a certain orientation. 

I don't think it matters that the OEM can put their software on it, its still anti-competitive in the EU because the OS includes standard google suite of products but not their competitors (ie Yahoo, outlook) Which gives them an advantage to gain market share because alot of people wont bother installing the 3rd party apps. TBH even samsung might get in trouble for bundling apps browser on their phones.

 

 

Definitely an interesting case to watch though, I can definitely see your side of the argument. Ultimately though, I think that its great that the EU is at least asking the question. So much anticompetitive activity in big tech goes absolutely unchallenged in NA. 

 

[Sniperfox47]

3 hours ago, AntiTrust said:

I don't think it matters that the OEM can put their software on it, its still anti-competitive in the EU because the OS includes standard google suite of products but not their competitors (ie Yahoo, outlook) Which gives them an advantage to gain market share because alot of people wont bother installing the 3rd party apps. TBH even samsung might get in trouble for bundling apps browser on their phones.

 

 

Definitely an interesting case to watch though, I can definitely see your side of the argument. Ultimately though, I think that its great that the EU is at least asking the question. So much anticompetitive activity in big tech goes absolutely unchallenged in NA. 

 

That still hasn't explained how not every single OS would be anticompetitive then.

 

Windows includes notepad preinstalled, but doesn't include notepad++. Has a calculator app but not all of the other various competing calculator apps. Has the Windows On-screen keyboard but not all the other on screen keyboard alternatives. Distributing all of all of the different possible competitors for a given product catagory isn't implimentable in any way shape or form.

 

I mean bundled software is literally what makes an OS more than just a kernel. You out of necessity *have* to bundle some software. Linux isn't a functional OS on it's own without, at the absolute least, some console applications and driver's bundled with it.

 

Are we going to expect software developers to start lisencing every piece of software for ecosystems individually? Should Microsoft have to lisence Windows without Notepad because companies want to have my notepad alternative as the only one on the machines they sell? Should they have to lisence the NT kernel out separately because companies may not want the rest of Windows on top of it?

 

Where do you draw a line?

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

17 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

That still hasn't explained how not every single OS would be anticompetitive then.

 

Windows includes notepad preinstalled, but doesn't include notepad++. Has a calculator app but not all of the other various competing calculator apps. Has the Windows On-screen keyboard but not all the other on screen keyboard alternatives. Distributing all of all of the different possible competitors for a given product catagory isn't implimentable in any way shape or form.

 

I mean bundled software is literally what makes an OS more than just a kernel. You out of necessity *have* to bundle some software. Linux isn't a functional OS on it's own without, at the absolute least, some console applications and driver's bundled with it.

 

Are we going to expect software developers to start lisencing every piece of software for ecosystems individually? Should Microsoft have to lisence Windows without Notepad because companies want to have my notepad alternative as the only one on the machines they sell? Should they have to lisence the NT kernel out separately because companies may not want the rest of Windows on top of it?

 

Where do you draw a line?

You are misunderstanding the agreement between windows and desktop manufacturers.    Windows isnt bundling separate api and forcing apps.  They are part of the OS.  Notepad, IE, Edge, Defender are built in. 

 

If Android wasn't just a base and everything was built in, anti trust would never have been raised.

[Sniperfox47]

2 minutes ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

You are misunderstanding the agreement between windows and desktop manufacturers.    Windows bundling seperate api and forcing apps.  They are part of the OS.  Notepad, IE, Edge, Defender are built in...

That's kind of my point...

 

How is it more anticompetitive to say "Hey you can use our options if you want or roll your own if you want. The choice is yours." than it is to say "Nah everything's baked in and you can't roll your own solution even if you wanted".

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

@Sniperfox47  Does Windows restrict the competition of Lenovo, Asus, Dell, HP with notepad, IE, or defender? No

 

If you want notepad++ and are a developer you install it.

 

Wins 10 provides with the choice to install another browser at install.

 

Defender is appropriate protection, no cares about the competitiveness of anti-virus

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

By the way all linux distro can be command line non-gui installs, ie just the kernel, drivers, the system and a package manager. 

[Sniperfox47]

14 minutes ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Does Windows restrict the competition of Lenovo, Asus, Dell, HP with notepad, IE, or defender? No

And how does Google? I keep hearing back "They have a lot of apps!" as a reason, but that's not really a reason. I mean you don't go "well Win32 has a lot of apps so Microsoft should have to lisence Win32 for other companies by itself without the rest of Windows!"

 

Quote

If you want notepad++ and are a developer you install it.

And you can just install apps on Android too... In fact you can just install entirely competing app stores and API ecosystems on it...

 

Quote

Wins 10 provides with the choice to install another browser at install.

Again, browsers are a bad example because this is a result of Microsoft's EEE practices in the past. It was EEE that was anti-competitive, the installation of Internet explorer was just a tiny part of that. I'm pretty sure nobody's saying that the browser market on Android doesn't have competition considering how many web browsers are cluttering Google Play, Amazon Apps and Games, Yandex.Store and the other various stores. For just a small sample check this out: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dmobile-apps&field-keywords=web+browser&rh=n%3A2350149011%2Ck%3Aweb+browser

 

Quote

 

Defender is appropriate protection, no cares about the competitiveness of anti-virus

I'm pretty sure Antivirus vendors do...

 

10 minutes ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

By the way all linux distro can be command line non-gui installs, ie just the kernel, drivers, the system and a package manager. 

And what's your point? That's not how commercial licenses of Ubuntu are licensed out. They're licensed out as a full system image. If you want to sell a laptop with Ubuntu preinstalled and have a full commercial license for support for your users, you have to follow Canonical's terms.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 6/8/2018 at 11:54 AM, Sniperfox47 said:

Question for those of you in the EU following along with the lawsuits being targeted at Google for antitrust violations.

 

Why does Google's sale of Google Play services as a package (The Play Store and Firecloud backend being bundled as a package with Chrome, Keep, Google+, etc) constitute anticompetitive practices in any way?

It's a one to one mapping to the old Microsoft case with Internet explorer. Bundling can be used as an anti-competitive strategy when you take advantage of a dominant market position (which you may as well have earned) to have an advantage on a different market (where you may as well be no better than your competitors). In each case, the discussion is centered on whether the bundled services are "a core functionality of the main product" (Microsoft's position) or a separate market of its own (the antitrust prosecutors' positions).

I'd argue that the mobile market is has way more of this than the PC market ever had. You may disagree with the ruling on Internet Explorer back then, but since that's the way the EU ruled, the real question is not "why is this happening?" but "why so little, so late". Between Apple and Goolge there would be enough cases to saturate EU courts forever  

 

On 6/8/2018 at 11:54 AM, Sniperfox47 said:

 

 

Why is it so "anticompetitive" that Google bundles some software not even needed for an OS as a package,

The fact that they are not even needed is what goes against Google (see Microsoft's defense strategy on the IE case).

On 6/8/2018 at 11:54 AM, Sniperfox47 said:

while OSes can be distributed as a single package entirely and that's okay?

Well, not so long ago I was wondering why MS got the hammer back then for a browser, when thinks like App stores and Android had a lot of bundling and gatekeeping and that's OK, but now it seems it isn't, so... this may not be the end of it.

[Sniperfox47]

1 minute ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Well, not so long ago I was wondering why MS got the hammer back then for a browser, when thinks like App stores and Android had a lot of bundling and gatekeeping and that's OK, but now it seems it isn't, so... this may not be the end of it.

That comment was more about Notepad. And Wordpad. And paint. People. Photos. Mail. Windows Remote Desktop. File Explorer. Calendar. Camera. Calculator. I can go on.

[Sniperfox47]

3 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

The fact that they are not even needed is what goes against Google (see Microsoft's defense strategy on the IE case).

How does the fact that Google play services isn't needed by other vendors mean that they're being anti-competitive by offering it as an option? I mean if Play Services and all this other stuff was baked into an OS image it would be... well it would be the same as Windows.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 minute ago, Sniperfox47 said:

That comment was more about Notepad. And Wordpad. And paint. People. Photos. Mail. Windows Remote Desktop. File Explorer. Calendar. Camera. Calculator. I can go on.

I don't know why you think it makes a difference. The IE case is the IE case because Netscape sued Microsoft. If Adobe had perceived bundling Paint as a strategy to take Photoshop out of business, we would have had the Paint case.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 minute ago, Sniperfox47 said:

How does the fact that Google play services isn't needed by other vendors mean that they're being anti-competitive by offering it as an option?

As a default option that sits there before you do anything. Really, as I told you: it is one to one from the IE case. IE was "an option", but because it came pre-installed, Microsoft ended up being forced to put a first-log-in popup telling you that multiple browsers exist and to pick your own.

Spoiler

 

I'm not sure whether you actually don't understand the case, or you understand it, disagree with the prosecution, and are looking for some EU prosecutor placeholder to argue with...

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

6 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

~

Android distros are about experience that is how they differentate.  

 

Windows manufacturer is about hardware.

 

Antivirus is about protection, having one is deemed mandatory for protecting users, running out isnt viewed as acceptable 

 

Ubuntu comes with gnome to not scare away the uninitiated and no one is selling in the linux environment it is either FOSS or GNU

 

You seem to have strong views about EU anti trust law, why?

[Sniperfox47]

18 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I don't know why you think it makes a difference. The IE case is the IE case because Netscape sued Microsoft. If Adobe had perceived bundling Paint as a strategy to take Photoshop out of business, we would have had the Paint case.

The IE case was the IE case because Microsoft was aggressively developing proprietary add-ons to the open web standard to push web vendors out of the market though.

 

Google's doing absolutely nothing similar here. They've added nothing to the Android OS that negatively impacts the ability for other hardware OEMs to offer competing software packages. In fact they've gone out of their way to make sure that app developers can still offer their apps on other stores, even if they use Google Play Services, because most apps (other than Google's apps themselves) can just cleanly fall back if Play Services aren't available.

 

14 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

As a default option that sits there before you do anything. Really, as I told you: it is one to one from the IE case. IE was "an option", but because it came pre-installed, Microsoft ended up being forced to put a first-log-in popup telling you that multiple browsers exist and to pick your own.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I'm not sure whether you actually don't understand the case, or you understand it, disagree with the prosecution, and are looking for some EU prosecutor placeholder to argue with...

My point is that Google Play services *ISN'T* a default option. It's something the hardware vendor has to explicitly go out of their way to support.

 

People are not arguing that including these with Android is anti-competitive. They're *NOT* included with Android. That's my whole point. They're complaining that them being bundled with *Google Play Services* is anti-competitive. Which is something that no developer needs to roll out an Android device...

 

If these apps were mandatory to be bundled with Android I'd totally be on board. But they're not. At all. In the slightest. Google is just saying "If you want to buy some of our apps on Android they come as a bundle pack and you have to include all of them".

 

I don't know why people keep on bringing up the IE case. Nobody here is saying that browser vendors are being shunted out of the Android market. Nobody is. The IE case went the way it did *specifically* because EEE (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish) was anticompetitive and their default distribution of the app was a part of their EEE push for the web.

 

P.S. on that note I also want to point out that the BrowserChoice initiative expired and was not renewed and Microsoft now is free to bundle their browser all they want, because it was the EEE practices and not the bundling itself that was deemed anti-competitive.