
Google reportedly keeps tabs on usage of rival apps to develop competitors - lladnar
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/24/21336946/google-android-lockbox-data-rival-apps-antitrust-scrutiny
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haecceity
In some companies (that also has a platform of some kind, where they have
information that would give them an advantage over everyone else in the
market), it's not allowed to act on this information unless its released to
the public. It's anti-competitive in some way.

The group that collects the information is not allowed to share the
information with the product group.

Does anyone know legal basis for this policy?

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bavell
Whenever I see headlines like this I think, "... Duh? Of course they do, along
with many other underhanded tactics". Perhaps I'm just cynical and know a
little too much of what happens behind the curtains in large tech companies...

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Shared404
tldr: Large corporation abuses power to maintain position.

Unfortunately, nothing will change until consumers start noticing/caring about
these sort of things.

Government regulation will just cause it to become more hidden.

Or I'm horribly misunderstanding the situation. It wouldn't be the first time.

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auganov
Who says it's bad for consumers? Big corporations are monitoring what's
popular to develop their own offerings in these markets. For consumers it
means more choice and potentially better products.

It's bad for startups which obviously don't want competition from stronger
players.

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thomk
Having less options because one giant company ate up all the small companies
is always bad for consumers. Competition is good for consumers. Monopolies are
good for corporations.

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auganov
This is not done by just one giant company. Many majors like Amazon and
Facebook have been reported to have similar strategies.

This is competition. All the giants want to grow. That's the name of the game.
Google is now said to be going against Amazon (and a ton of small e commerce
startups) with their product search offering.

Yes, when it comes to booting rival apps off app stores and so forth, I agree,
it's a problem. It should be looked at.

But developing copy cat products is unavoidable[0]. Let's say we ban big corps
from doing this. Then you'll just see them funding it. This has been going on
forever. Most of the time it's just knocking out an undercapitalized startup
and actually bringing the product to a much bigger audience at a better price
point. The consumer wins.

[0] where IP issues don't apply

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thomk
I feel like the problem has more to do with big players owning the app stores.
They have access to all of the data that allows them to know which apps are
popular and profitable. It's easier for them to know which apps to knock off;
the own the data that tells them that.

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auganov
I don't know, I feel like they just have access to this data so they're using
it.

There are many 3rd party app store intelligence products out there. And you
can buy incredible datasets from some tracking companies. There are only as
many popular things out there, have a hard time believing that they
fundamentally wouldn't be able to do it without the more privileged access.

Wouldn't be surprised if they are actually using a ton of 3rd party data too,
but only this kind of usage makes headlines as it seems "wrong".

