
Google Faces E.U. Antitrust Charges Over Android Apps - axg
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/20/technology/google-android-eu-antitrust.html
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DiabloD3
They aren't going to make it very far with this. Phones are now required to
bundle these services, and Samsung ships phones that uses S replacements for
everything (launcher, health, payments, music, app store, cloud storage,
camera/photos, and a few others), yet runs Android.

Not only that, Google provides APIs in newer versions of Androids that allow
third party apps to provide all this stuff. When installing apps that provide
those services, they just need to use the APIs to integrate into the system.

Such as, I have OneDrive installed, and Google Drive and OneDrive appear as
accessible from any app that uses the new file loader API (which was
introduced in ... 4.x?). Google is working with Microsoft to allow Cortana to
be a full replacement for Google Now's "Okay Google" trigger, including "Hey
Cortana" trigger while sleeping (on phones that support that).

I can also install any office suite I want without any API support required, I
can also install third party music players (and get full music player API
support and Chromecast support for players that support it), third party...
anything. Even a third party app store.

From what I can tell, this is all about the Google Now launcher supporting
Google Search only. You can install any launcher you want. Google Now cannot
integrate into other search engines because of THEIR lack of an API, not
because Google doesn't want to (I mean, they don't, but it's not their fault).

The EU needs to step off and stop ruining company's products. This is
literally a repeat of Microsoft Windows shipping a browser and a media player
, where _any_ browser and media player could be used instead. The EU at the
time, apparently, could not understand you could have multiple apps installed
that do the same thing, and file types and URL types have associations that
can be changed by the user.

The EU is dangerously clueless about technology.

And if they're not going after Apple for the same charge, where they _won 't_
let you use third party browsers on iOS, or third party app stores, or music
players, or whatever, then they're just untrustworthy idiots that have no clue
how the world works.

~~~
chipperyman573
>This is literally a repeat of Microsoft Windows shipping a browser and a
media player , where any browser and media player could be used instead.

The main issue was that you couldn't uninstall or disable IE, and due to
microsoft's dominance in the market the EU felt it should be possible to do
so.

~~~
DiabloD3
Except you can never uninstall or disable MSIE period because the actual
browser canvas element is depended on by both Microsoft and non-Microsoft apps
and is a core service of the OS. Modern Windows Update, modern Help,
Outlook/Outlook Express, anything that uses ActiveX, and third party browsers
that just wrap Trident wouldn't work.

That's like telling Apple they have to unbundle Safari, then breaking all the
apps that depend on the Webkit framework.... which is a shitload of apps.

The only thing N/KN editions of Windows do is force you to download the
Windows Media Player if you choose to use it, and simply unhides the MSIE icon
in your Start menu if you choose to enable it. And as for Windows Media
Player, N/KN doesn't disable things like DirectShow and Media Foundation,
which Windows Media Player is just a fancy front end for.

It was a waste of both EU and US money for our respective DoJs to have sued.
Microsoft didn't stop you from using other browsers, and allowed any app to be
assigned to htm/html file associations and http/https/ftp URI scheme
associations, even back in Win98 when they introduced that weird "Active
Desktop" shit (a Trident canvas element as a background image on your desktop,
it was weird but interesting), Microsoft never stopped you from downloading
Netscape Navigator and using it as your default browser.

Windows was the first OS to have a browser by default, and the _second_ OS to
have a media player by default (Quicktime came before the original Media
Player in Windows 3.x, which used DShow's predecessor, Video for Windows). In
fact, Apple sued Microsoft over allegations of stolen source code from
Quicktime, and Microsoft settled over it.

Notice the EU hasn't sued Apple for having a bundled media player first (since
1991, or 25 years ago), nor having a bundled browser (since 2003, or about 13
years ago, or about half way between MSIE 6 and 7). Also please note that the
EU antitrust case was in 2004.

Why is the EU so protectionist towards Apple? It isn't their company, they
have no more interest over Apple than they would Microsoft or Google, all
three are American and all three have about the same amount of involvement in
the EU for local services.

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ultramancool
Hmm, interesting that Google, who allows 3rd party markets and non-Google
signed app installs (like Amazon, F-Droid, Aptoide, etc) is getting hit with
this.

Perhaps it's more related to stock Google Apps they're shipping with Android
devices, similar to the MS bundling IE anti-trust cases? Google's Android apps
are pretty great and having them ship on devices for free is probably a pretty
big killer of competition, including these apps may even be a requirement to
be allowed to ship play store.

~~~
dogma1138
Because Aptoide is a European company and it launched the complaint which
started this whole thing.

This absurdity happened because Google isn't outright blocking 3rd party apps
and app stores outright.

It does has some restrictions which resulted in Google Play not being
available on Kindle devices, and market apps can't be hosted on the Play Store
but it leaves them enough room to actually be some what viable which means
that companies exist that can cry foul.

This is basically a case of give them a finger and they take the whole hand.

------
enjo
Surely Apple is going to face the same charge?

~~~
thedevil
I doubt it. You and I are both going to get heavily downvoted for this by the
devout Apple fanatics, but it's unreasonable that Google is held to a much
higher standard than Apple.

Google gives away the OS for free (speech and beer), allows competition on the
devices, but requires bundling of its app with its store (which has
competitors).

Apple not only bundles the apps, it explicitly locks out competitors with
code, forbids competitors in their agreements with customers and developers,
and IIRC forbids developers who write for its platform to also put the same
app on any competing app store (which again are forbidden by contract and
locked out with code).

~~~
mcintyre1994
I won't downvote you and I agree that Android is way more open, but I
understand antitrust to be about monopolies. I don't think Apple is anywhere
close to a monopoly position with iOS in any market, and I'd be surprised if
they're above 50% in any European market.

~~~
Yetanfou
Apple has a 'local monopoly' in that it is the only choice for those who have
bought into the iOS (and, to a lesser extent, OSX) family. Combine this with
the fact that many schools use iPads and the situation soon becomes clear: in
some segments Apple has a remarkably high presence.

Now you can say 'but anyone who buys Apple devices does so with the knowledge
that these restrictions apply', and that is certainly true. The same can
however be said for anyone who buys an Android device, with the added factor
of being able to select alternatives for those Google apps and services.

In other words, if the EU thinks Google should be prosecuted, then so should
Apple, for all the same reasons - only more so.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Can you define a market that Apple has a monopoly in that a regulator should
investigate? You've identified current iOS users, but surely that's circular?
I don't doubt that iOS market share is super high in some segments, but do any
of them constitute a regulated market?

In education the last I heard was Chromebooks are at over 50% of devices in US
schools, and that's against Windows and iOS. I'm sceptical Apple have a
monopoly in education except "tablets in schools" which again doesn't seem
like a whole market.

~~~
Yetanfou
Identifying iOS users as a target for Apple's monopoly is no more circular
than identifying Google-branded (ie. Nexus et al) Android users as a target
for a Google monopoly. Non-Google branded Android can, and often does use non-
Google apps and stores so that segment can not be considered to be monopolised
by Google. In practice the same is true for Google-branded Android devices as
it is possible - and not all that hard - to swap Google apps for others.

As to whether I think anyone should investigate Apple and Google I'd say 'no',
but that is not what this is about. I don't think Google should be
investigated for the stated reasons, but if the EU insists on investigating
something I claim there is at least as much ground to investigate Apple as
there is to do so to Google.

Where I live - Sweden - Apple does have a large presence in schools. The
situation with regard to IT in Swedish schools seems to be that there is
money, but no plan. This makes it possible for 'driven' people to steer their
local community in the direction they deem to be the preferable. Many of these
'driven' people have a marked preference for Apple products.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I'm not so sure that Google actually does have the same circular monopoly
power as Apple, because really it's just about lock-in and - from experience -
moving from Android to iOS is really easy. You don't lose any data and
everything is cross platform by default. Going the other way by contrast,
you'd have to deliberately move things into third party cross platform apps.

I'm also not sure whether that would count as a monopoly if they did have
sufficient lock-in, given their vast market share - as a hypothetical. I guess
probably yes.

I'd agree that neither should be investigated, but I do disagree that Apple
have as much grounds to be - they just don't have the market share.

I was probably too simplistic on education, it's a difficult issue for sure.
My ICT teacher in school used to have a pretty big budget and spend it on toys
because he got Windows hardware/software so ridiculously cheap. Microsoft had
made the ICT curriculum in the UK entirely based on learning how to use their
software and apps. All their stuff can be obtained between free and really
cheap for students from school to university, and it's pretty much always the
standard expectation to use it. And then you have iPads and Chromebooks taking
over, probably not running Microsoft apps and probably like you said with no
real plan. It's interesting and probably broken, but there's probably no
monopolistic player there.

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Arzh
"and consumers have the last word about which apps they want to use on their
devices." Is this true in the EU? Do the carriers and hardware manufacturers
not bundle in a bunch of total garbage that you aren't allowed to remove
(sometimes you can disable it but like I want any of this crap from LG)?

~~~
davorb
> Do the carriers and hardware manufacturers not bundle in a bunch of total
> garbage that you aren't allowed to remove

I can tell you that they don't do it in _most_ European countries, but I
wouldn't be surprised if they did it in a few places (like the UK).

~~~
jakubp
FWIW in Poland at least some of the top 4 carriers force their bloatware on
your Android phone, with no way to uninstall (I haven't tried rooting the
phone though).

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tdkl
The latest in EU tech money grabs - those failed banks aren't going to pay for
themselves.

------
cloudjacker
I'm waiting for the antitrust violation launched by developers.

With arbitrary reasons their apps get removed, sometimes surprisingly brazen
feature copying by the store owner, and lack of humans or any transparency in
the appeal process.

