[Update] Google to be fined 5 billion dollars by the EU for breaching Antitrust laws

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, mark_cameron said:

The out come will be increased competition.

 

Which is an academic fact: that benefits consumers through reduced costs/prices and innovation.

 

This principle of law has time and again benefited consumers in all industry sectors.

 

Go learn economics. Economists don't like anti competitive practices.

I think it is pretty foolish to assume the law and courts are always going to produce the best results.   Academia frequently debates over what is the best. I don't think it is accurate to say this is an academic fact.   You only have to look at things like GM food to see that academic consensus on this is pretty clear however laws around the world (including the EU) are forcing manufactures to label it or even ban it.   The  law and the courts decisions are sometimes driven by ideals and social narrative, rather than genuine academic evidence.

[mark_cameron]

Just now, mr moose said:

I think it is pretty foolish to assume the law and courts are always going to produce the best results.   Academia frequently debates over what is the best. I don't think it is accurate to say this is an academic fact.   You only have to look at things like GM food to see that academic consensus on this is pretty clear however laws around the world (including the EU) are forcing manufactures to label it or even ban it.   The  law and the courts decisions are sometimes driven by ideals and social narrative, rather than genuine academic evidence.

It is an academic fact. It's why many countries around the world have laws preventing this behaviour as it damages the wider economy and consumers.

 

But I equally think we're at the crux of it. Where certain Americans think their views on the world should apply to everyone.

 

It's equally interesting you bring up GM food given the EU banned it. And the US (Trump administration) wants that ban overturned.

 

[mr moose]

Just now, mark_cameron said:

It is an academic fact. It's why many countries around the world have laws preventing this behaviour as it damages the wider economy and consumers.

 

But I equally think we're at the crux of it. Where certain Americans think their views on the world should apply to everyone.

 

It's equally interesting you bring up GM food given the EU banned it. And the US (Trump administration) wants that ban overturned.

 

Because GM food being safe is an academic fact, the science is quite concise, yet the EU don't like it.   By your reasoning then the EU should not ban it because the laws and the courts should recognize the academic facts.

 

Consumer protection is a requirement of many countries because of the imbalance of power between large corporations and singular consumers, not because of some perceived economic benefit.  Laws change and evolve with societies. They always have and always will.  They are based largely on societal demand rather than academic consultation.  Sometimes this works in our favour and sometimes it doesn't.

[Thaldor]

 

On 7/21/2018 at 2:11 PM, mr moose said:

I believe MS willingly implemented the open standards because open source was gaining too much momentum for them to ignore. I don't think it was a legal requirement. 

I remember there being some legal pressure for that, but I may rememebr incorrectly.

Quote

And I don't think that is necessarily illegal,  not the best for consumers I'll grant because all the power is in one corner, however we do have choices and that is what should dictate the market when it is capable of doing so.  I.E when the time comes that you can only buy android because manufacturers are somehow unable to offer an alternative. EDIT, this sentence should read that laws forcing companies to open source should only occur when this time comes.

Options? Well, back in the day there were options for Windows also, they just were... wait a minute, this is kind of exactly the same. There is options but the options are iOS (closed to Apple only), FireOS (Amazon only and heavily under fire by Google), Windows 10 Phone (does someone actually use it?), Fail...*gough*...Sailfish (only Jolla ATM, would include this into the next section) and then the "amateur/indie side". Google having over 80% of the markets and Apple being around 10-18% and the rest 1-2%, Googles over 80% include Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, Motorola, Huawei, ASUS, Lenovo, ZTE, Acer and so on from which all are also part of the Open Handset Alliance under which they are forbidden to develope their own Android-builds and probably more because the leader of OHA is Google. Only one that is in OHA and actually allowed to compete against Android is Samsung with Tizen, but probably even Google knows that if it forces Samsung to use Android Wear instead of Tizen, Apple is going to just smash the wearable markets.

 

For consumers there is choices, anyone is free to root their devices and change the OS the device runs on. But what really matters is what you can buy and then there's only Android, iOS and in US FireOS, because majority of the device buyers don't even know that you can install a different OS, let alone how it's done.

 

Only real competition that might come is that Amazon makes Kindle devices more globally known and available or Microsoft gets their game together and makes a comeback (of course there is the small chance of miracle startup). I don't see any bigger device manufacturer trying to make their own OS just because all of them are a part of OHA and (at least some of them) contibuting to Android, also it means they would need to develope their own OS from the ground up and I don't think Google would take that nicely. Just like Google didn't take it lightly when Amazon released Fire TV and Echo and so stopped selling Chromecasts and Homes (at that point Google stopped supporting YouTube on Fire TV and Echo, after that Amazon came back with browser capable of showing YT videos and Firefox for Fire TV, but Google has tried to F with them also disabeling their TV mode) (and IIRC, all FireOS devices are in the same limbo).

Quote

The problem here is google is allowed to have a dictatorship over android because google owns and develops android.   So the question remains should open android even be a thing?  As a consumer and advocate of opens source the answer is yes, as a capitalist and entrepreneur the answer is no.  Google didn't get where they are being nice to people or giving them stuff for free (contrary to popular belief all their services cost you something).

Agreed, Google can do what they want with the Android and especially with the Android Mobile Services. But I would argue that Google is very much misusing it's market shares around search engines, navigation services, browser services and especially VOD services and mobile OSs by having iron grip on OHA (which in itself screws markets because it forbits quite many manufacturers that could compete against Google from competing against Google) and moving vital features from OS that was at first marketed as "free and open" to their "non-free" service (BusinessInsider at least has an article from 2014 where Google refuses to tell how much AMS(/GMS) sertificating license costs, but companies that have it and can sertificate devices to use AMS tell that they charge from $40,000 upwards to "test" and sertificate devices. And looking at the GMS website I would say Google isn't going to sell the sertification license to a device manufacturer) making the "free and open" more like "free but useless" (I would argue that what Google really would like to do is to make the same as Apple; Apple has a website where you can download open source parts of the OSX, iOS, OS X Server and developer tools, but I assure you, from those you cannot build a working OS. Only thing why Google hasn't done it, is that it would have made EU jump even faster to the throat of Google).

 

Everybody is free to use whatever they want, but once they have "The Service" that everybody wants to use and which actually becomes so popular that a company not using/supporting it cannot exist, the rules change. Think about a browser that cannot access YouTube because Google bans it; Does someone use it? Is there a single chance of it being successful? Can the developer do something else than comply with Google?

Spoiler

I would say no, no and no. Even if the browser was IE/Edge; hardcoded, included and unremovable in Windows, no one would use it because probably well over 50% of the time people use a browser is in YouTube.

Google has VOD service (YouTube), serch engine (Google Search) and a mobile OS (Android) (and software market (Play Store)) that have "The Service" -status. And Google has used that to kill some of the competition and screw the markets for their advance. [Foliohat] If the itch in my rear is right, I would say that even Apple pays Google to support iOS just because if they wouldn't pay and Google removed their support, that would be a very, very huge disasder for even Apple [/Foliohat].

And this is what EU hates the most. A situation where a single company can control whole markets because they have "The Service" and they have shown that they are willing to use that power. Google has services and it has shown that it willingly uses them to kill off competition (Amazon is a bad example because they apparently actually can do without Google, but I think if you were to give people even the Fire TV or Chromecast and tell that the other doesn't support Amazon Prime and the other doesn't support YouTube, almost everybody would take the Chromecast because it supports YouTube and all because Amazon has refused to sell devices competing against their owns).

[Mihle]

4 hours ago, Drak3 said:

No interference was needed to begin with.

No, manufacturers will continue including Google's services regardless, as well as additional services they want, as they always have.

 

Nothing changes, except that $5bil is set to transfer hands.

Why would Samsung (and others) complain it in to EU if it didn't limit them doing something?

[asus killer]

1 hour ago, Drak3 said:

Tactical, selfishly driven, and responcible for its employees.

i will assume "selfish driven companies" with more power then the other party, i.e, the "stupid consumers", are somewhat a unbalanced relationship wouldn't you agree.

Maybe, just maybe, that's why someone must balance this. The guys we pay to do it are the governments.

[asus killer]

52 minutes ago, mark_cameron said:

Every member of this forum is a "consumer"

do you know what's most mind blowing:  every company is led by a stupid consumer 

 

 

 

 

[mr moose]

10 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

 

I remember there being some legal pressure for that, but I may rememebr incorrectly.

Options? Well, back in the day there were options for Windows also, they just were... wait a minute, this is kind of exactly the same. There is options but the options are iOS (closed to Apple only), FireOS (Amazon only and heavily under fire by Google), Windows 10 Phone (does someone actually use it?), Fail...*gough*...Sailfish (only Jolla ATM, would include this into the next section) and then the "amateur/indie side". Google having over 80% of the markets and Apple being around 10-18% and the rest 1-2%, Googles over 80% include Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, Motorola, Huawei, ASUS, Lenovo, ZTE, Acer and so on from which all are also part of the Open Handset Alliance under which they are forbidden to develope their own Android-builds and probably more because the leader of OHA is Google. Only one that is in OHA and actually allowed to compete against Android is Samsung with Tizen, but probably even Google knows that if it forces Samsung to use Android Wear instead of Tizen, Apple is going to just smash the wearable markets.

There are options, remember it was only ten years ago when nearly all phone manufacturers had their own OS. Samsung can write their own again, and because android is basically Linux is there little reason to assume they can't make it compatible with android apps.  Google haven't prevented end users form installing whatever app they want. This ruling could easily change that.

 

10 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

For consumers there is choices, anyone is free to root their devices and change the OS the device runs on. But what really matters is what you can buy and then there's only Android, iOS and in US FireOS, because majority of the device buyers don't even know that you can install a different OS, let alone how it's done.

I don't even consider installing OS's as an option for consumers.     They have apple, android and in some area's WP.  It would be nice to see more developers bringing Linux to he phone like the ubuntu phone.  If google go into a licensed model and that makes android more expensive then I can see the attraction for a custom OS by makers like Samsung. 

 

10 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Only real competition that might come is that Amazon makes Kindle devices more globally known and available or Microsoft gets their game together and makes a comeback (of course there is the small chance of miracle startup). I don't see any bigger device manufacturer trying to make their own OS just because all of them are a part of OHA and (at least some of them) contibuting to Android, also it means they would need to develope their own OS from the ground up and I don't think Google would take that nicely. Just like Google didn't take it lightly when Amazon released Fire TV and Echo and so stopped selling Chromecasts and Homes (at that point Google stopped supporting YouTube on Fire TV and Echo, after that Amazon came back with browser capable of showing YT videos and Firefox for Fire TV, but Google has tried to F with them also disabeling their TV mode) (and IIRC, all FireOS devices are in the same limbo).

Agreed, Google can do what they want with the Android and especially with the Android Mobile Services. But I would argue that Google is very much misusing it's market shares around search engines, navigation services, browser services and especially VOD services and mobile OSs by having iron grip on OHA (which in itself screws markets because it forbits quite many manufacturers that could compete against Google from competing against Google) and moving vital features from OS that was at first marketed as "free and open" to their "non-free" service (BusinessInsider at least has an article from 2014 where Google refuses to tell how much AMS(/GMS) sertificating license costs, but companies that have it and can sertificate devices to use AMS tell that they charge from $40,000 upwards to "test" and sertificate devices. And looking at the GMS website I would say Google isn't going to sell the sertification license to a device manufacturer) making the "free and open" more like "free but useless" (I would argue that what Google really would like to do is to make the same as Apple; Apple has a website where you can download open source parts of the OSX, iOS, OS X Server and developer tools, but I assure you, from those you cannot build a working OS. Only thing why Google hasn't done it, is that it would have made EU jump even faster to the throat of Google).

I get that,  having dominance in the market is the reward for putting th effort into making a product work.   I don't agree that it is too late for manufactures like Huwawia, LG and Samsung to flex some muscle and make their own OS and provide developers the resources to port their apps to  it.

 

10 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Everybody is free to use whatever they want, but once they have "The Service" that everybody wants to use and which actually becomes so popular that a company not using/supporting it cannot exist, the rules change. Think about a browser that cannot access YouTube because Google bans it; Does someone use it? Is there a single chance of it being successful? Can the developer do something else than comply with Google?

  Reveal hidden contents

I would say no, no and no. Even if the browser was IE/Edge; hardcoded, included and unremovable in Windows, no one would use it because probably well over 50% of the time people use a browser is in YouTube.

Google has VOD service (YouTube), serch engine (Google Search) and a mobile OS (Android) (and software market (Play Store)) that have "The Service" -status. And Google has used that to kill some of the competition and screw the markets for their advance. [Foliohat] If the itch in my rear is right, I would say that even Apple pays Google to support iOS just because if they wouldn't pay and Google removed their support, that would be a very, very huge disasder for even Apple [/Foliohat].

And this is what EU hates the most. A situation where a single company can control whole markets because they have "The Service" and they have shown that they are willing to use that power. Google has services and it has shown that it willingly uses them to kill off competition (Amazon is a bad example because they apparently actually can do without Google, but I think if you were to give people even the Fire TV or Chromecast and tell that the other doesn't support Amazon Prime and the other doesn't support YouTube, almost everybody would take the Chromecast because it supports YouTube and all because Amazon has refused to sell devices competing against their owns).

I am certain that companies have a lot of deals going on behind the scenes to ensure that services are supported across each product, that is exactly why Amazon have issues with google.  They basically refuse to sell google products on their massive platform so google refuses to allow them to integrate google services into their products. 

[Drak3]

12 minutes ago, asus killer said:

i will assume "selfish driven companies" with more power then the other party, i.e, the "stupid consumers", are somewhat a unbalanced relationship wouldn't you agree.

Maybe, just maybe, that's why someone must balance this. The guys we pay to do it are the governments.

Companies don't have more power. At all.

 

To think they do, when everything they have is derived from consumers, is stupid.

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Because GM food being safe is an academic fact, the science is quite concise, yet the EU don't like it.   By your reasoning then the EU should not ban it because the laws and the courts should recognize the academic facts.

 

Consumer protection is a requirement of many countries because of the imbalance of power between large corporations and singular consumers, not because of some perceived economic benefit.  Laws change and evolve with societies. They always have and always will.  They are based largely on societal demand rather than academic consultation.  Sometimes this works in our favour and sometimes it doesn't.

Just because the EU got the science wrong in one area doesn't mean it necessarily got it wrong in another.

 

(and it isn't a firmly established scientific fact that GMOs as a whole are safe; the actual food products being unsafe is not the worry)

 

This is not a case of consumer protection, it's an antitrust case. You can go back a couple pages and see how Google hardcoded their search engine. Imagine if your PC was hardcoded so it could only use one search engine. Is that fair competition for other search engine companies?

 

Antitrust legislation improves competition which is good for society. That is about as firmly factual as things get in economics (which, as a social science, doesn't really lend itself to those 5-sigma results of "absolute certainty" you'd get in physics). The EU is right to apply such legislation.

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, Drak3 said:

Companies don't have more power. At all.

 

To think they do, when everything they have is derived from consumers, is stupid.

"Plantation owners don't have more power than slaves. At all.

 

To think they do, when everything they have is derived from slaves, is stupid."

 

(no, I'm not saying consumers are slaves, just illustrating that your assertion is nonsensical)

[Thaldor]

13 minutes ago, mr moose said:

There are options, remember it was only ten years ago when nearly all phone manufacturers had their own OS. Samsung can write their own again, and because android is basically Linux is there little reason to assume they can't make it compatible with android apps.  Google haven't prevented end users form installing whatever app they want. This ruling could easily change that.

 

I don't even consider installing OS's as an option for consumers.     They have apple, android and in some area's WP.  It would be nice to see more developers bringing Linux to he phone like the ubuntu phone.  If google go into a licensed model and that makes android more expensive then I can see the attraction for a custom OS by makers like Samsung. 

 

I get that,  having dominance in the market is the reward for putting th effort into making a product work.   I don't agree that it is too late for manufactures like Huwawia, LG and Samsung to flex some muscle and make their own OS and provide developers the resources to port their apps to  it.

First thing, this ruling doesn't, yet, change anything. What changes something is the oncoming EU court sessions. Unlike some want to think, this ruling doesn't really mean anything else than that EU has something that proofs Google doesn't really have clean cereals in their bowl and those affect the markets making them unfair. As said this ruling was to only get the interest of the Google and that it got.

 

The problem is that the groundwork needed for a new mobile OS starts to be quite overwhelming. Even modifying Linux to run on a mobile device might turn out to be quite hard. At least what I know there really isn't any mobile OS that wouldn't derive from earlier "huge" projects (Android->FireOS and almost every "indie"OS, Maemo->Meego->Sailfish). Only one that has done the ground work is Firefox OS, but it died quite fast because it could really only support 3rd world devices and even then it was quite far from "complete" OS (mainly because it was somehow restricted by the design of using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript). Even for some company as huge as Samsung it would take years to make the ground work and it would be a huge risk.

 

What I think is the biggest issue for EU is also the catch-22 in developing a new mobile OS. The two biggest promises risen in the near past have been FireOS and Fail...Sailfish. FireOS is Android based and so it's not that hard to get some applications to a store for people to use. Sailfish in the other hand, even if it can support and run most of the Android applications, Jolla failed and badly because they couldn't get enough customers that the developers would have started to make Sailfish versions of their applications with Android and iOS versions. And if there's no apps that people can use, there's no customers for developers to profit from. You would need to make it 100% Android compatible and probably sink millions even billions of dollars to get developers support your OS so that your application store wouldn't look like Google+ next to Facebook (or you would need to get it to access Play Store, which is not going to happen and if you fork your way around to make it happen, Google...will...kill...you).

 

And then there's that the biggest muscles are in Open Handset Alliance (almost know as "On the Hand of Alphabet"). Officially they are not forbidden from developing their own OSs (as long as they are not Android based), but I could see that when it came public that you were developing a new OS, even the worst tabloids wouldn't have time to publish an article about it before every single Android phone you have ever manufactured was banned from Play Store.

 

Quote

I am certain that companies have a lot of deals going on behind the scenes to ensure that services are supported across each product, that is exactly why Amazon have issues with google.  They basically refuse to sell google products on their massive platform so google refuses to allow them to integrate google services into their products.

Unlike Google Amazon has real competition going on with eBay and others. Even if it's a huge corporation, it doesn't own something over 80% of global market shares (like Amazon is actually almost non-existent in the Nordic countries, probably if I was to connect Echo to my WLAN it would probably only say: "Cannot connect to the NSA, shutting down" ). So, for Amazon it's ok to refuse selling some Google products (just like Toyota store probably refuses to sell Fords), but it's not ok for Google to refuse Amazon devices accessing YouTube (like Ford would have made carburetor and without it any gasoline car could not move and refused to sell those to Toyota making it impossible for Toyota to make a car because only other viable choice would be to make diesel engine, but that is completely owned by Mercedes-Benz and only they use it and have never sold it for anyone else) [The Worst Examples ^{(I need to register this as an trademark)}]. It all comes down to the power balance, Amazon refusing to sell Chromecasts really doesn't bother Google, but Google banning FireOS devices from YouTube completely could kill the FireOS. This probably stands even for something like Google vs. Apple; If Apple was to ban every Google service from iProducts, it would be they putting a shotgun at their kneecap and Google probably couldn't care a less (maybe that much that they would make a pressrelease stating that they had nothing to do with it, it was all Apple), but if Google was to ban every iProduct from Googles services it would be Google putting a shotgun at Apples head and Apple would be royaly [minor friendly expression about adult action]. Google could probably go against Microsoft and still win just because Google is that big.

 

It's 100% fine and even adviced to be successful. Just as long as it's fair and everybody has a chance to compete. Google at the moment is in a position where there is almost no one that can compete with it on a fairground and so it must be careful with it's moves that it doesn't seem to make the grounds even more unfair and apparently EU has seen Google doing that kind of moves.

[mr moose]

54 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

 

It's 100% fine and even adviced to be successful. Just as long as it's fair and everybody has a chance to compete. Google at the moment is in a position where there is almost no one that can compete with it on a fairground and so it must be careful with it's moves that it doesn't seem to make the grounds even more unfair and apparently EU has seen Google doing that kind of moves.

I guess there in lies the problem then, what you determine fair I do not and vice versa.  

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

Just because the EU got the science wrong in one area doesn't mean it necessarily got it wrong in another.

I never said that,  I was responding to the claim that laws are not wrong because it is an academic fact,  I was pointing to an example where a law was passed that is not founded on an academic fact.

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

(and it isn't a firmly established scientific fact that GMOs as a whole are safe; the actual food products being unsafe is not the worry)

And be that the case or not is moot, the point was laws are not always established on academic research. And to assume a courts decision is supported by academia is just that, an assumption.

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

This is not a case of consumer protection, it's an antitrust case. You can go back a couple pages and see how Google hardcoded their search engine. Imagine if your PC was hardcoded so it could only use one search engine. Is that fair competition for other search engine companies?

 

That's just it, my pc is not, google can hard-code their search engione to response with only US sites and puppy dog pictures for all I care, so long as I as an end user can use any browser and search engine or app I want then there is no case.

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

Antitrust legislation improves competition which is good for society. That is about as firmly factual as things get in economics (which, as a social science, doesn't really lend itself to those 5-sigma results of "absolute certainty" you'd get in physics). The EU is right to apply such legislation.

Sometimes it does sure, sometimes it's based on fairly shaky activities and sometimes it gets ignored by the government of the day.   I'm not here to argue all anti trust is evil, I am simply saying I think the extent to which the EU is reaching here goes beyond anti trust and delves into a realm that can spawn an outcome that is much worse for consumers.

[Tech Enthusiast]

3 hours ago, mark_cameron said:

The out come will be increased competition.

 

Which is an academic fact: that benefits consumers through reduced costs/prices and innovation.

 

This principle of law has time and again benefited consumers in all industry sectors.

 

Go learn economics. Economists don't like anti competitive practices.

3

Yeah, because paying for an OS will make more competition show up and existing competition on the edge of profitability will surely not go down under by suddenly facing an added cost factor. And consumers will surely not have to pay more to offset all of that.

 

I will join the "i give up" and "/ignore" crowd from here on out.

You clearly only look at laws and ignore if they actually fit the case or make any sense whatsoever. Good luck with that. 

[Donut417]

Maybe Google should take a page out of Amazon's book. The kindle Paper white comes in two version. One with special offers (Cheaper) and the one Without special offers (more expensive). Maybe Google could offer a version of Android without Google service, allowing other companies to put apps on you letting you choose, but charge the OEM more money for that version of the OS, which can be passed on to the consumer. The version of Android with Google service would be less money. If gives the users a choice. 

 

Or they could just strip all of the Google services out of the EU version including the play store and make the end user pay for access. Any way you look at it, the EU consumers have to foot the bill. Its their government that decided to make this choice. So lets not make the rest of the world pay for it. As the founding fathers of the US said, "No taxation without representation". The EU cant force US citizens to pay more for a product because they dont like it. 

 

[mr moose]

21 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Maybe Google should take a page out of Amazon's book. The kindle Paper white comes in two version. One with special offers (Cheaper) and the one Without special offers (more expensive). Maybe Google could offer a version of Android without Google service, allowing other companies to put apps on you letting you choose, but charge the OEM more money for that version of the OS, which can be passed on to the consumer. The version of Android with Google service would be less money. If gives the users a choice. 

 

They'd find a away to call it anti trust or monopolistic.

 

 

21 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The EU cant force US citizens to pay more for a product because they dont like it. 

 

I'm afraid with the economy being global now they can to a degree.  Whether we like it or not, the consequences of bad decisions in one country spill over into the rest.

 

 

[asus killer]

8 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Companies don't have more power. At all.

 

To think they do, when everything they have is derived from consumers, is stupid.

faced over Facebook, Google, Apple, etc..., Joe from Botswana has the same power as them? Not even Linus has.

 

You are completely overtaken by the rhetoric in the US. you kind of prove the point @mark_cameron was making against @Jito463

[mrthuvi]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

 

They'd find a away to call it anti trust or monopolistic.

 

 

I'm afraid with the economy being global now they can to a degree.  Whether we like it or not, the consequences of bad decisions in one country spill over into the rest.

 

 

It's called abuse of a dominant position. Can't call it monopolistic or anti trust if there is a sizable competitor (iOS or something).

[mr moose]

49 minutes ago, mrthuvi said:

It's called abuse of a dominant position. Can't call it monopolistic or anti trust if there is a sizable competitor (iOS or something).

Monopolies aren't illegal on there own either.  Unfortunately that doewsn't stop people from assuming monopoly = antitrust = unethical.

[LAwLz]

35 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Monopolies aren't illegal on there own either.  Unfortunately that doewsn't stop people from assuming monopoly = antitrust = unethical.

That is not what is happening in this thread though.

In this case Google has a near monopoly on smartphone OSes, and they are using that to their advantage to push out competitors in other sectors.

 

If you ask me this case is pretty cut and dry, and Google are guilty.

The fix seems to have been easy to do too, which just begs the question why they didn't do it to begin with. The answer to that question should be obvious by the way. Because leaving it hardcoded ensured that people could not use competing services.

Not sure if I think the 5 billion dollar fine is the correct amount, but I am sure some though went into it based on number of users, competitors, how long it has been going on for, Google's revenue and other factors.

 

In any case, I think it's great to see users getting more control over their devices, and to see a bit more equal playing field on the market.

 

 

 

By the way, here are the three bullet points which the EU found to be illegal:

Quote

• 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").

I think it makes perfect sense that these are illegal.

Requiring Chrome and Search to be installed if you want to have the Play Store makes no sense from a technical standpoint. It's just a way for Google to push their software unfairly.

 

Paying companies to not use competing products is a massive no no.

Imagine if Intel paid Dell to not use AMD processors in their computers. Clearly that should be illegal, right?

 

The third one I am not sure I think should be illegal. I think it would make sense that developers can say "no, you can't ship a device with my software unless I agree to it", but then again Google is so massive that such power can extremely easily be abused to kill competitors, which is not good.

Also, apparently manufacturers would lose all rights to bundle Google apps across all of their devices, if a single one used a forked OS. So that is clearly abuse. So if Samsung decided to ship Bing search instead of Google search on one of their phones, Samsung would no longer be allowed to use any of the Google apps on any of their phones.

That is clearly abuse on Google's part.

[Drak3]

3 hours ago, asus killer said:

You are completely overtaken by the rhetoric in the US.

That's a load of bullshit. There is no company loving rhetoric in the US. The media spews on about how large companies are devil incarnate, how they owe the US citizens everything. Basically the socialist bullshit that is fucking the US over.

 

3 hours ago, asus killer said:

you kind of prove the point @mark_cameron was making against @Jito463

That point is invalid.

[Peskanova]

13 hours ago, mark_cameron said:

It is an academic fact. It's why many countries around the world have laws preventing this behaviour as it damages the wider economy and consumers.

 

But I equally think we're at the crux of it. Where certain Americans think their views on the world should apply to everyone.

 

Well people use to care about US exporting products and freedom but when the chineese knocks at your market our over-protector/critizied system is embraced by our US fellows  

[Thaldor]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

-snip-

You forget that it's a place where Google has gotten with hard scam... *gough*... working and it's a reward to be able to control the markets.

 

Like if American company XYZ owned 99.9% of the backbone global network, it would be their priviledge to kick Netflix, Hulu, Viaplay, HBO and YouTube out of their network when they released their $200/month XYZstream service. It would be their reward to be able to choose which services live and which must die because they can only hope to serve their services to the 0.1% of humans because everything else is owned by the XYZ. No one should be able to tell what XYZ can do with their product or service and if someone did so, they would be restricting the freedom of the XYZ to do their business as they want to do it. If company ABC was to make a device that can watch Netflix over XYZs network, it would be the pleasure and priviledge of the XYZ to throw the ABCs devices out of their network and even demolish the headquarters of the ABC and make a junkyard on the site (because XYZ also owns most of the construction companies) and refuse any and all insurances the now ex-employees of the ABC try to get (because XYZ also owns most of the insurance companies). Not even talking about someone trying to build a new network beside the XYZs one to compete against them, because that wouldn't happen because XYZ could easily stop the competitor from connecting to the XYZ-network and so to the 90% of websites and services wouldn't be available.

[/sarcasm]

 

Can't do anymore. Probably people who think that it's right for Google to do everything they can to kill of the competition think that it was ok for Microsoft to forbid PC manufacturers to ship PCs with Linux inside of them and if someone was ballsy enough to do it, Microsoft was (by contract) priviledged to take royalties even out of those Linux-PCs. Also they probably can with the same arguments say that the net-neutrality is harming ISPs and net-neutrality should be removed so ISPs could do business as they want to do it.

 

(nothing peronal to anyone. Just a very bad day at the office)

[Peskanova]

15 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

snip

Thing here is when is a US company seems that people there are taught to think that anything about market regulation = sorta comunism , here in europe the mindset is so different, I'm speaking in my opinion but when this hapen in Europe we dont take it like its our company, we take like a company is taking money / growing unfairly.  Anything here unfair is regulated by gov (in every EU country) but in USA people think that taking advantage of unfairy laws is freedom, well to those people I say like I said you think this is overprotecting from EU see how US regulates Bitcoin and all the blockchain movement

[Drak3]

4 minutes ago, Peskanova said:

Anything here unfair

By whose metric.

Everything is unfair. The EU's case in itself is unfair.

5 minutes ago, Peskanova said:

USA people think that taking advantage of unfairy laws is freedom

Google isn't taking advantage of unfair law. They're maintaining that THEIR product is THEIR product, and it should be offered on top of third party products only when offered exactly as THEIR product.

 

The consumer doesn't have to buy it. Third parties don't have to use it. Above all, these are luxury items, not necessities, and should be treated as such.