
Aptoide wins court battle against Google in landmark case - crunchiebones
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-google-antitrust-aptoide/aptoide-wins-court-battle-against-google-in-landmark-case-idUKKCN1MW2CL
======
wyqydsyq
If anyone else thought this article is pretty scant on context, here's the
backstory behind the lawsuit, Google was using Play Protect to nag users to
uninstall the Aptoide app store:
[https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/2018-07-12-aptoi...](https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/2018-07-12-aptoide-
says-google-stops-users-installing-a-different-app-store-on-android-devices/)

~~~
qball
Good. Maybe Microsoft should be taking note since it was doing the same thing
earlier: ([https://www.howtogeek.com/243581/windows-10-may-delete-
your-...](https://www.howtogeek.com/243581/windows-10-may-delete-your-
programs-without-asking/))

~~~
joelhaasnoot
But what about Apple? iOS is designed such that a third party app store is
impossible. Why should Google have to allow a third party app store and Apple
be able to "walk free" in their walled garden.

~~~
Fnoord
Aside from the other (excellent) comments already made, Apple neither has the
same market share as Android nor does it have a (near) monopoly in search or
advertising.

~~~
sysstemlord
This excuse is always mentioned whenever such comparison appears. But it
doesn't convince me.

Having a smaller market share doesn't mean you can get away with breaking the
law.

~~~
Fnoord
It isn't a get out of jail for free card. Laws still apply for any company
however for a (convicted) monopolist different laws apply than for a random
(successful) company. Microsoft and Google _are_ convicted monopolists.

------
1nverseMtx
This is the top download list for last week:
[https://en.aptoide.com/apps/local/more?period=7d](https://en.aptoide.com/apps/local/more?period=7d)

Note all the high profile apps like Google Photos, Nest, WhatsApp, Instagram?
None of these have been uploaded by Google, FB, etc. These could easily have
been modified to include additional malicious code to steal your personal
data.

None of this is mentioned of course in the press. But it seems like this
company mainly survives on copyright infringement and serving malicious apps.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Bear in mind [https://www.apkmirror.com/](https://www.apkmirror.com/) is a
totally legit site run by Android Police, which also gives you all the APKs
you need to sideload official apps from Google, Facebook, etc. See
[https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-
inc/](https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/) to get an idea how much they
have and how convenient it is.

Most people accept that "free" apps should be able to be installed any way
that people like. The difference is that Google doesn't consider their apps to
be "free", they're a licensed component of Google Apps, which manufacturers
license for their phones.

~~~
1nverseMtx
> Most people accept that "free" apps should be able to be installed any way
> that people like.

That doesn't make it legal or safe. Re-distributing copyrighted material is
questionable even in Portugal.

But more importantly there's no guarantee the app binary was not modified and
repackaged to include malicious code.

~~~
opencl
It is very easy to verify these apps have not been modified if you also have
access to a known good copy of the same app. Install known good copy ->
install suspect APK as upgrade -> signature check performed on upgrade
verifies that it was signed with the same key as the old version, so if the
upgrade succeeds there has been no modification.

~~~
ihuman
How do you get access to a known good copy of the app?

~~~
liotier
Especially since the normal use of an APK intermediary is that one does not
have access to a known good source such as Google Play

------
simfoo
> Aptoide said the Android antivirus program, Google Play Protect, was nudging
> users through a notification to uninstall the app store from their devices,
> warning them the program could download harmful apps. For those that choose
> to keep Aptoide despite the warning, the app store no longer functions and
> can’t install apps, the company said.

I'd be pissed as well

~~~
izacus
The part of the context that's missing is the fact that Aptoide is one of the
main channels for distribution of cracked and pirated Android apps.

~~~
Sir_Substance
It's also the primary source of common free apps that only publish on the app
store for people that run android phones without google accounts.

It still boggles my mind that organizations like keybase and protonmail refuse
to shove an APK on an S3 bucket somewhere, it makes me feel like they don't
really understand their audiences that well...

Anyway, for closed source free apps, aptoide has my back.

~~~
arendtio
F-Droid [1] might be another good option for Keybase and Protonmail. F-Droid
offers APK download from their website but also an app which reminds you of
updates or installs them automatically if you had an extra permission
extension and enabled the feature.

[1]: [https://f-droid.org](https://f-droid.org)

~~~
bubblethink
f-droid is a fork of aptoide. Just interesting information that isn't that
common knowledge.

~~~
BubuIIC
F-Droid the client started out as a fork of the aptoide app, yes. This was
quite a while ago and I doubt there's any resemblance in code or appearance at
this point in time.

F-Droid the ecosystem is far more than that though.

------
mikejb
If I read the article & comments correctly, the problem is that Aptoide is/was
sometimes/often used to distribute cracked apps from Google's AppStore and/or
removing in-app purchase requirements for additional features.

I can understand Google/App-developers not liking that, but why would they use
this approach? Is there no way to stop/challenge this though the court system?

~~~
creato
If it was sometimes/often used to distribute cracked apps, then it was also
almost certainly used to distribute apps with other added "features"
(malware), in which case, the connection with play protect isn't that crazy.

~~~
mikejb
I agree, and I think that's a good reason to deploy a warning about this
app(store) and educating the user about the risks. But blocking the installs
entirely is a bit much, IMO.

~~~
vatueil
Google's antivirus is optional, so if a user was cognizant of the dangers of
using Aptoide but still wanted to risk it couldn't they turn Play Protect off?

Google and Microsoft are often criticized for malware that targets Android and
Windows, respectively, but restrictions such as this render Play Protect and
Windows Defender increasingly toothless in the battle against malware vectors.

------
Jyaif
My paid app has gotten between 5k-25k downloads on their store, obviously
without me getting a cent. What are my options to hurt them as much as
possible?

~~~
ruicardoso
You have 2 options:

\- Be a partner and publish your paid app there. It then will be paid.

\- Submit a DMCA notice: "9.3 DMCA Notices. If Aptoide receives a Notice
according to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Aptoide will
immediately remove the Product in question. Such notices shall be directed to
Aptoide’s DMCA Agent at abuse.report@aptoide.com." They will then unlist it.

~~~
radley
Both options suck. There are dozens of sites like these to keep up with.
Distribution is one thing, but customer support is a nightmare, particularly
since you don't know if you're supporting a legitimate download or not.

DMCA is a nuisance. You have to be big enough to dedicate resources to filing
and tracking takedowns, as well as be able to take legal action anywhere in
the world for sites that don't respond. It's very easy to clone a pirate site.
It's much harder to play whack-a-mole to take one down.

~~~
toast0
Sorry to be dismissive, but this is basically what the internet is for content
creators. There's a reason the *AAs of the world resort to sending automated,
often stupid, blanket takedowns -- computers make copying easy.

At work, we've used MarkMonitor to try to solve similar things, which is
sometimes useful and sometimes results in our secondary apps getting taken off
Google Play.

------
gammateam
> “If you have reason on your side don’t fear to challenge Google.”

I like this. People forget that just because you agreed to a contract, it
doesn't mean you have to put up with everything in it as a court might
disagree with the facts and circumstances.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Having reason on your side has not been an historically reliable way to win
legal battles.

~~~
gammateam
Getting the court venue, judge, and that jurisdiction's political process
favorable is an art too.

------
writepub
If only the courts showed half as much willingness to regulate Apple as
Google. Remember when steam was banned from Apple's app store, and Apple
retroactively modified it's ToS to justify the ban?

------
samfisher83
How is apple able to not getting any EU slack for allowing little to no
competition on their devices. I know their market share is a little less, but
it is still pretty big in Europe.

~~~
bobcostas55
Android has something like 85% market share in Europe, it's not even remotely
close.

~~~
samfisher83
15% is still a large market share.

------
ucaetano
Is there any source for this that doesn't rely on a Aptoide press release?

Every other source seems to go back to this Reuters article and the Aptoide
PR.

------
_dmurph
What's the deal here? Aptoide was malware? Or was it serving malware-infected
apps? Or none of the above?

~~~
londons_explore
It was a super easy place to get pirated apps that had usually been ripped
from the play store and modified to open up all in-app purchases for free.

~~~
sleepychu
+???

Who knows what other modifications were made.

~~~
qwertay
Who knows what the original play store apps did to begin with. Most of the top
apps are basically malware. Maybe someone added a bitcoin miner to the
existing spyware that came from the original app but it just comes back to the
same thing that you can't trust proprietary software to be safe.

~~~
Goronmon
But at least if the original play store apps have spyware issues, you can
generally find a developer/company behind them to blame. If Google updates the
Gmail app to include a bitcoin miner, people are going to find out and be
pissed at Google.

If someone takes the Gmail app, injects a bitcoin miner and uploads it to a
third-party store, who gets the blame?

~~~
qwertay
Google puts a personal data miner in gmail and no one gives a shit.

------
ocdtrekkie
Probably the most interesting thing here is that after Google has just
reworked it's licensing to suggest Google Apps are "worth something" as
opposed to just being "free", now Google is prohibited from banning a top
method of sideloading them.

The emperor has been revealed to be wearing no clothes. I wonder if Google
will now start implementing DRM into Google Apps to prevent them from running
on unlicensed phones.

The other place this gets interesting is that most Google Apps are just
clients for online Google services, services offered free, which have (truly)
free apps on iOS that aren't tied to a license fee. How long will Google be
able to extract license money from Google Apps from Android manufacturers that
Apple gets for free? How long will users tolerate being told this is licensed
software that is just the best way to access gmail.com or youtube.com on their
phones?

~~~
neil_s
Wut? They only started charging EU manufacturers for the apps because the EU
courts required them to. They want as many phones as possible using the apps
if they can, to get more users into the online services.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
EU courts didn't require them to start charging manufacturers. Google chose to
start charging for them, since they were upset the EU told them they could no
longer make access to them conditional upon preloading Google Search and
Google Chrome, which are where Google makes all it's money on ad revenue.

Google could absolutely allow users to install the YouTube app or the Gmail
app with no strings attached, but they don't want to do that. They want them
tied to Google Search/Chrome, like in the rest of the world, or for a fee,
like in the EU.

------
dlgeek
After seeing the headline, I really was hoping it was a lawsuit over Maps,
just for the pun.

~~~
osrec
On account of it being a landmark case?

------
lgleason
While Aptoide is probably not the ultimate answer, Google does not have a leg
to stand on here given the amount of censorship they have been practicing on
the app store by banning apps such as Gab.ai. Irregardless of whether you
agree with the content on Gab, they are not perpetuating viruses, harming the
system etc..

The fact that Google can majorly affect your business by denying you access to
the app store is a real problem. Apple is guilty of this too and these are
problems with the entire mobile space.

------
kmlx
the virus creator sues the antivirus company and wins.

~~~
ruicardoso
Do you have any source on this?

I've worked in Aptoide, they aren't a virus company. They even spent a lot of
resources fighting virus but that's always a cat and mouse game and given the
amount of resources they have vs amount of users that can publish an apk
(everyone) it gets hard.

If you think they are manipulating the published apps, you are free to fork
the Aptoide client on github.com/Aptoide and create your own version.

~~~
neil_s
That's precisely why Google wants the average Android user with uncertain tech
knowledge to use the app store. It uses Google's immense machine learning and
ops resources to fight malware and malicious apps.

------
dcalixto1
great victory!

