
Google loses appeal against Russia’s Android antitrust ruling - rch
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/google-loses-appeal-russia-android-ruling/
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niftich
I'm not a state or regulatory body, but it's obvious to me that Google in fact
bundles their services along with their OS and makes alternative apps or
services (like, say, the Google Play Store vs alternate app stores) awkward in
some cases.

One can argue that realities of the implementation like trust, bootstrapping,
having a minimum viable product, key exchange, etc. make it difficult to do it
any other way, and in most cases, that argument is fair. But Microsoft
famously got hit about both IE and Windows Media Player, so intuitively I feel
either they're both in the right, or both in the wrong.

What's remarkable to me is how Apple has been able to escape such suits to
date, as they're far more vertically integrated. Regardless of the
jurisdiction and their particular propensity for monopoly-busting or
protectionism, cases like this leave me the cynicism that as it's not really
the behavior that's being regulated, but rather individual targets are in the
crosshairs.

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ocdtrekkie
The key reason Apple is basically never affected by this, is Apple is putting
Apple software on Apple hardware. The tying issue that comes into play for
both Microsoft and Google revolves around the arrangement between the software
developer and the hardware manufacturer. Since Apple is both, this is a non-
issue.

But when Google is forcing Samsung to do things or Microsoft is forcing Dell
to do things, it's a different ballgame.

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on_and_off
>Since Apple is both, this is a non-issue.

I would argue that it is kind of an issue for consumers and third party
developers when you can't install/publish apps without Apple's approval.

If you consider that an iDevice is like a game console, this is fine, if you
consider it like a generic computer, this is a big limitation.

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oconnor663
Would this case never have come up if Android wasn't open source? It sounds
like it might be incentivizing the wrong things.

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ocdtrekkie
Almost certainly, yes. Internet Explorer wasn't open source and neither was
Windows. The problem is not open source vs. closed.

The issue is how Google interacts with it's manufacturers. The biggest problem
with Microsoft's behavior in the 90s was the way they exerted control over
other companies. And that is the same problem today with Google. Few people
realize it because Google keeps their agreements with manufacturers strictly
secret.

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erikpukinskis
I suspect the manufacturers who want to use Android but don't want to use
Google Maps aren't doing it because they hate Google Maps, they're doing it
because they don't want to pay any licensing fees at all. They want to use
Android because it's free, and rather than playing ball with Google they want
to swap out all of the services with free or cheap local alternatives. The
companies who are willing to pay something have no problem with Google because
the fee structure is on par with whatever relationship they had with
Microsoft/Symbian before, or maybe cheaper because Google is monetizing with
ads.

If Android was 100% proprietary, these bargain manufacturers probably wouldn't
be looking at it in the first place. They would be using Ubuntu Phone or Nokia
Linux or whatever the open source phone OS would've been if Google hadn't
grabbed the brass ring.

That's the theory anyway. I your OP poses a very interesting question, and
perhaps a cautionary tale for open source companies. Still, many open source
companies do just fine selling services without strong-arming people into
buying them.

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ocdtrekkie
AFAIK, Google doesn't charge OEMs for Google Apps licensing. Apps generally
pay OEMs to be preloaded, not the other way around.

The primary issue is that Google gets it's apps preloaded for free, whereas
OEMs could get other companies to pay to have their apps preloaded. Or, in
situations where the OEM has their own apps, they'd rather just offer those.
(See Samsung for an example of that.)

In this specific example, Yandex would almost certainly pay Russian OEMs to
preinstall Yandex and set it as default. (Note, Google has paid Apple and
Mozilla princely sums to be their default search in the past.)

However, OEMs currently can't do that, because Google is mandating in order to
get the Play Store, which they need, they must install and set Google Search
as default. Hence, Google is abusing their monopoly on the app store to
guarantee they don't have to compete for price on search preinstallation,
which is illegal.

If Google's agreements with OEMs are removed, Google may still be the default
search on devices, but Google will have to pay for the privilege because
they'll have to outbid their competitors.

