Fork it! Google fined €4.34bn over Android, has 90 days to behave What convinced the European Commission that it had a Microsoft-scale competition problem on its hands with Google isn't a mystery. Google engaged in a carbon copy of '90s Microsoft-style tactics. Google leveraged its platform dominance in Android to promote its own services and apps, at the expense of third-party services, the …
From the article, Vestager said:
[Google] dominates licensable mobile operating systems ("over 95 per cent"), app stores ("over 90 per cent") and mobile search ("over 90 per cent in most European countries").
iOS is relevant to exactly one of those categories, and 90% is the correct number if you're factoring in iOS. Further:
The commission objected to three practices in particular: the requirement to preinstall Google Search and Chrome, payments to phone makers to make Google Search the default, and restrictions on creating "forks" of Android....
[Vestager] said manufacturers were interested in licensing Amazon's FireOS Android. But by making even one FireOS phone, the OEM would have lost the ability to include Google Play Store on its other devices.
The allegation is that Google's 90+% of phones mean that the anticompetitive terms it imposes on other companies — e.g. barring them from including Google Play if they offer any product featuring FireOS — is an illegal distortion of the market.
Do despite the appeal of bad-guys-on-both-sides whataboutism, I really think Apple's contribution has already been factored in here.
The major issue they identified was Google leveraging Android to strengthen their dominance of the online search and advertising markets (i.e. where they make all their money) which are markets Apple doesn't even participate in. Not to mention Apple has a minority of the market in the EU and all individual countries. Hard to abuse a monopoly if you don't have one.
"There are many reports of Chrome ignoring the settings in the 'hosts' file. We know that MS does this and I hate it."
I don't have any problems with the hosts files.
There are a few things to consider when using the hosts file:
#In some OS versions you need to change how DNS is resolved, in Windows 7 the default hosts file mentions this and the "127.0.0.1 localhost" is commented out.
#Some antivirus programs will flag any changes to the hosts file and so the host file needs to be whitelisted.
#You may want to also consider adding an entry for IPV6 as well such as:
"::1 localhost"
"::1 twitterface.com"
So google could just say they will stop updating android, lock down the code, encrypt it and no longer issue any new updates to non google made phones.
That the nuclear option for google and a pretty frightening one for all of the smaller OEMs, it would likely reduce competition down to just Apple, Google, and well Samsung, once they played catch up building their own OS or work on learning how to continually evolve a fork version of Android on their own without google support and infrastructure.
A whole host of mobile phone manufacturers would likely go bankrupt within months or withdraw from the mobile market.
So instead of increasing competition the EU would have decimated!
Anyway I think the commission completely ignoring apple in the market will be shown as illegal in a court of law and the commission will have to go back and redo all of it work taking Apple into account.
David164,
So google could just say they will stop updating android, lock down the code, encrypt it and no longer issue any new updates to non google made phones.
They could. But they won't. Because the reason they abuse their Android monopoly is not because they make a profit out of Android. They still make 95% of their turnover from advertising - Google are a massive ads company - who do a bunch of other stuff in order to sell ads. And I'm sure they'll maintain Android because not only does it push lots of users to Google services (to see more ads) but it also gives them back masses of data on where everyone goes and how fast (for satnav traffic info - and advertising), what they buy, who they talk to and email etc. Android is just a datalogger to improve the accuracy of targetted adverts.
But if they drop it, then various rivals can come back into the market. Windows Phone was actually quite good by the end, and I'm sure that someone could pick up the Android open source stuff and get working on it. Samsung have Tizen. It would just mean Android stagnating for a couple of years, but what new features does it really need?
"So google could just say they will stop updating android, lock down the code, encrypt it and no longer issue any new updates to non google made phones."
They could do that with the Play runtime, but everything below that (Android and Linux) is FOSS so they can no more lock it down than I can.
Competition law protects markets from distortion, for the benefit of consumers.
So a company with only a small slice of a market can do whatever it wants, because it does not strongly influence market.
When the company with 90% of a market prevents manufacturers from considering diversification, that's textbook anticompetitive behaviour, and it should be obvious why that's a substantial detriment to consumers.
"monopolist in terms of user lock in methods"
It's not illegal, though nasty. Google though has a market share monopoly.
The way iTunes works for sellers may be illegal. That's under investigation.
I do have an iPhone 4S, it's now effectively a dedicated phone & MP3 player.
Anything that ONLY can use Internet to copy stuff ought to be illegal, but it is legal. I do not rely on ANY vendors "Cloud". I copy via USB or ethernet, do my own backups. Three versions.
They are monopolist in terms of user lock in methods - try getting iTunes for android, try auto sync of photos (etc.) you take to iCloud from Android.
Maybe, had the iphone inherited the ubiquity they had in the early 00's with the ipod, but they haven't.
I'd forgotten all about itunes, (I had to send a request for long term storage for the word 'ipod') hard to believe that buggy bloat POS, itunes was every a thing.
seriously mucked up mentally now, i'll be iwriting, 'i' in ifront of ieverthing for the irest of the iday.
Icon : sod it, I'm on the sauce (isauce) the rest of the day.
Having done a little research, it looks like:
Android:
You can change default search engine
You can change default browser (and the defaults for most other types of content)
Yes, you may have the google apps installed, but you're not forced to use them.
IOS:
You can change the default search engine
You CANNOT change the default browser - you can open things in other browsers from Safari, but not you have to initially use Safari to view pages
Apple are one of the largest single manufacturers of phones - shouldn't it be a level playing field?
If manufacturers of phones that use Android don't want to use Google Search / Chrome / ... its pretty simple to configure the phone not to use them by default (unless its in their contract to use them - I've never seen the contract!)
Obviously, all the Android-using phones that are in the supply chain (really anything after design!) won't be compliant with the EU ruling - and many non-Google phones will never get a software upgrade to fix the situation even if Google / Android release it...
This is only tip of the iceberg on Google's exploitation of Android users, Chrome, Gmail, Youtube, Gplus, Google Docs, Google Translate, Google Playstore usage, Google Books, Google Art, Hangouts, Groups etc . Also web sites using Google Web server APIs, Fonts and Analytics etc.
Much much more to come.
Even reluctant Irish Data Commish considering slapping Facebook.
It's about time that [primarily USA] corporations discover using the Internet does not mean law doesn't apply: Uber, AirBnB, Amazon, MS, Apple, Oracle, IBM, Adobe, Twitter etc.
Have been repeatedly pestered during the setup to sign up for the manufacturers own app to provide very slight benefits on warranty and some very iffy sounding self-cloud storage.
All for the price of my daughter (who's under 10) name, DOB, contact details, IMEI and GPS info.
No thanks, oddly enough it's a pain to remove these sorts of apps, it's even built into the damn settings menu.
So when that fine gets divvied up across the EU's 500 million (or so) people, there will be a beer or two in it for everyone.
This level of fine seems ..... fine. After all, the USA fines european companies (BP, Volkswagen, Barclays) billions of dollars - it is only fair that we fine some of theirs back!
The question then arise: how to spend it?
> They're being fined for illegal behaviour
As were the european companies. With any global company you can always find some wrongdoing somewhere. The only question is how to deal with it. Whether you try to correct it, mitigate the damage, or just treat it as an opportunity to get some "free" money.
And fining foreign companies really is free money. It costs the prosecuting country next to nothing and causes them little or no hardship.
The UK seems to think the ignominy of being found to be breaking the law [ sharp intake of breath! ] is enough - the UK fined Facebook half a mil (how they must be laughing now) - and presumably paid that with Zuckerberg's credit card. And forgot about it just as quickly. But at the $ billion level, the cost becomes noticeable, starts to act as a deterrent for next time and the restitution could actually do some good - and not just with drinks all round.
Pete 2
The UK seems to think the ignominy of being found to be breaking the law [ sharp intake of breath! ] is enough
Now I know you're American. Such a U.S. view of the English, it's total fiction.
UK government have no such concept of ignominy, the proof is their response to mass surveillance being found illegal, their response was mostly to try to ignore it, then offer measly rewordings that didn't much change the illegal nature of their intent much at all.
Sort of like a bank robber going in and offering to rewrite the note demanding money from the safe (after the trial), in the hopes it would no longer count as perpetrating a hold-up and they could walk away with 'the goods'.
"the UK fined Facebook half a mil (how they must be laughing now)"
That was the maximum the ICO were allowed to fine Facebook under the regulations at the time. Now with the GDPR it's a percentage of the offending company's turnover. 5% if my memory serves me correctly.
So no, it wasn't because the ICO went easy on FB, they had no other choice.
"So why didn't they just wait until the GDPR took effect so they could take advantage?"
Coz GDPR was not in force when the bad things happened. They could only punish Facebook for things that where considered bad at the time, no backdating law.
Please NO, nothing from Amazon. Certainly not FireOS. Amazon is a serial killer of competition. See acquisitions since 1998. Amazon should be forced to support DRM free ePub and Adobe DRM ePub on Kindles and Kindle Apps and FireOS. Amazon's aim is to make MS, Google and Apple look like Amateurs. They need broken up and existing laws enforced, not encouraged!
World's richest man (or close to it) wonders what to do with his money? Pay people properly!
There is the chance that this would erode Amazons grip too.
At the moment, Amazon is big enough to ignore Google, but other producers are not.
Cracking Googles stranglehold, may add some benefit to Amazon, but they've been big enough to not be particularly intimidated by Google for some time before bring out their pad, so it's not a sudden release of potential handcuffs for them at all.
Smaller entities are much more shackled by the current status quo.
I cant help but think this is nothing to do with antitrust but about topping up the EU pot of money.
I don't see the issue in making it part of google play that search maps and whatever else is to be installed. so long as it can be changed and removed if you like....
The only part I think is totally wrong is that manufacturers cannot use a fork on another handset and be able to have play on another. That is wrong. They stopped car manufacturers limiting sales at dealers to their cars which amounts to the same thing.
This post has been deleted by its author
"I cant help but think this is nothing to do with antitrust but about topping up the EU pot of money."
Even what looks like an enormous fine to you is still only a tiny amount in terms of the EU annual budget. Its barely a blip on the radar.
"The only part I think is totally wrong is that manufacturers cannot use a fork on another handset and be able to have play on another. That is wrong. They stopped car manufacturers limiting sales at dealers to their cars which amounts to the same thing."
And this is exactly what the fine is about. Google have been told this strong-arming was illegal for years but took no notice. The large fine is based on not just the action, but the duration of the action, after being told they were being naughty boys and girls.
I guess the point is that you don't actually have to use any of the MS bloat to actually get productive functionality out of your machine. I've had my Win10 laptop for 3 years and have never even come close to having had to use either, or the MS (cr)app store.
And how did you install Firefox? Through the Google Play Store almost certainly. The point of this is that without access to the play store Android is pretty much useless. Windows* allows you to install apps from a multitude of sources.
*The exception is Windows S on some tablets but Microsoft doesn't come close to having a monopoly in the tablet OS world
There are many alternatives to the google play store.
See: https://www.androidpit.com/best-google-play-store-alternative-app-stores
and https://fossbytes.com/10-google-play-store-alternatives/ for starters.
Not Google Play Store. Google Play Services.
Wrong. The post I was replying to said this:
And how did you install Firefox? Through the Google Play Store almost certainly. The point of this is that without access to the play store Android is pretty much useless.
AND there's the whole "untrusted sources" thing, which you can't undo without breaking the device's security,
It's just checking one box in settings.
which trips anti-root features increasingly common in apps
No it doesn't.
Show us where Microsoft is threatening to withdraw the availability of Windows to any manufacturer that dares to ship a Chromebook
Giants in the Playground (in lingerie)
Maybe Google is too big to dare crossing, or fear of pushing OEMs to total ChromeOS supply only, or Google has piccies of MS in saucy underwear....
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