Google Faces Anti-Trust Probe In Russia Over Android 149
First time accepted submitter Mark Wilson writes Google has a new battle on its hands, this time in the form of a potential anti-trust probe in Russia. Yandex, the internet company behind the eponymous Russian search engine, has filed a complaint to the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). Yandex claims that the US search giant is abusing its position by bundling Google services with Android. It claims that users are forced into using the Google ecosystem including Google Search, and that it is difficult to install competing services on smartphones and tablets. There are distinct echoes of the antitrust lawsuits Microsoft has faced for its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.
"Difficult to install" == "Difficult to compete" (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why you can't stop using google [theguardian.com], or have any other choices [alternativeto.net], or even change the search engine simply by yourself. [howtogeek.com]
I'm pretty sure that yandex knows how to do all this, so claiming it's "difficult to install" must mean "difficult to compete".
E
Re: "Difficult to install" == "Difficult to compet (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all about "Hey, we like Android but we don't want Google forced down our throats."
To be precise it's "Hey, we like the Google Play store (and perhaps other parts of the Google apps bundle; that's not clear) but don't want Google Search". Because you can absolutely use Android without Google. It's open source, Apache 2 licensed.
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, on Android, but don't speak for Google. I'm not offering any opinions on the Russian complaint, just clarifying what they're complaining about, as I see it.)
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This. I'm in China for 2 months. I didn't think ahead that most of the features on my Android phone wouldn't work when I get here because all Google services are blocked.
It took me all of an hour to change my default search away from Google, Install an alternative app store, and replace all of my Google apps which require an online connection with an alternative.
4 weeks left here and I'll go through the process of re-googlefying my phone again. Though in theory I could do that now since the first app I down
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On the other hand, if I lived in Russia, I would use Yandex services for the simple fact they are taylored for Russia itself.
are they taylor swiffed as well?
Re:"Difficult to install" == "Difficult to compete (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is linking several products tightly together - which is what Microsoft was taken to task for doing.
You can't ship a device with the Google Play store installed or available without also being required to have the default search engine for the handset set to Google. Two unrelated products linked by an exclusive requirement (exclusive being it excludes other products).
Android is fast becoming the only realistic third party handset OS you can source as a handset manufacturer - Apple doesn't license IOS, Windows Phone isn't viable for a lot of people, Blackberry are ... well, Blackberry, and the rest are bit players with no market penetration at all.
Sure, you can go with a lesser known app store, but you lose a good chunk of apps in the process. So its either go with the popular app store on the popular handset OS and live with restrictions on unrelated things, or go on your own and effectively marginalise yourself.
So tell me, in what world did Google tying the default search engine (and thus ad displays) to the use of an unrelated product on the most successful licensable OS become acceptable?
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It does indeed sound similar to the unbundling issues that Microsoft had in the EU. The solution was Windows N, which I actually rather like. It's the same as normal Windows, but without Media Player and Media Centre which I don't use anyway. As an added bonus you don't need updates that target WMP and WMC specifically either, and don't get prompted to upgrade them whenever a new version comes out.
It's a shame more manufacturers don't ship it, but I suppose from their perspective they want a media player to
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Microsoft also had put on it the restriction that that they were no longer allowed to restrict what OEMs could install with the OS they shipped to the end user - sounds familiar, doesn't it?
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So iPhones should be banned outright since you need to jailbreak to make these changes?
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That's a completely different discussion, since this one is about handset makers and sellers being restricted in customising the handsets in order to promote tied products, while your point is about users being restricted in customising the handset themselves.
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So your saying that despite the fact that Google already provides an open source version of their OS, that they don't tie you to their store (or the bundled search), that they must also come out with a version that only bundles the things that you want; otherwise they are anti-competitive?
As you mentioned, it's not tightly integrated into the system as you can clearly get a version without Google services and search (which is a Google service).
It's like a company that makes spreadsheet software arguing that
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So your saying that despite the fact that Google already provides an open source version of their OS
They don't have an open source version of their OS. That is, the open source version is limited, and missing a lot of functionality.
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The OS is still open source. The kernel is GPL and the libraries and many frameworks are either BSD or some other Apache-like license. Some of the applications they put on top of the OS, like Google Play, GMail, etc, are closed. Even Chrome is mostly open, released as the Chromium project. And it's based on WebKit, anyway.
Basically, though, everything that isn't particularly tied into the google ecosystem is open. There's really nothing stopping Yandex or anyone else from making an Android version tailored
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So your saying that despite the fact that Google already provides an open source version of their OS
They don't have an open source version of their OS. That is, the open source version is limited, and missing a lot of functionality.
Then add them! Amazon seems to be doing just fine with Fire OS [wikipedia.org]
Re:"Difficult to install" == "Difficult to compete (Score:5, Insightful)
So your saying that despite the fact that Google already provides an open source version of their OS
They don't have an open source version of their OS. That is, the open source version is limited, and missing a lot of functionality.
The only functionality it is missing is the stuff that yandex is complaining about Google bundling.
No, you don't get the automatic Google account provisioning in AOSP. Or Google Play. Or GMail. Or Google Calendar. etc.
Just what do you think a Google-less android would look like?
I don't get the complaint. The non-Google parts of Android are FOSS. Other companies even have made competing forks of it as a result. If MS had done the same thing with Windows back in the 90s there would have been no need for an antitrust lawsuit. If you wanted Windows without IE you could just recompile it yourself, and even sell it if you wanted to.
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The big problem you have is that more and more apps are building on the Google APIs, so beyond replacing gmail or the calendar, you have a big compatibility problem.
I'll agree with this. I don't like the way Google is handling the whole Play Services thing.
I like the idea of having an auto-updated component of the API that works across OS versions. That is what is causing everybody to use it.
What I don't like is that this is closed-source and bundled with all the Google-specific stuff.
They really should have two pre-installed apps. One is called Google Play Services and it is EXACTLY that - APIs related to the Play store, or maybe some other Google-specific APIs as
you can buy android without google over there.. (Score:2)
you can ship android WITHOUT google products though.
it's not really googles fault nobody wants to do it.
big companies that have done it include Amazon(kindle fire) and Nokia (Nokia X - and yes this is the part of nokia that microsoft bought so that line is effectively killed and never sold in euro/usa . ironically enough you CAN buy it in Russia. so you can buy an android device without google services, google search or any of that).
it doesn't ship with the google app store though, so what do they want? t
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The problem is not that you can't ship with Google products, its that you can't ship with *some* Google products - if you want the Play store, you have to also have X, Y and Z - oh, and you must also send all search traffic to Google as well.
So basically, you either get to bundle the best app store and go fully Google, or you get to cause your end users issues by bundling the second best app store but get to use your own solutions for other things such as search.
Why should Google be allowed to tie the searc
Re:you can buy android without google over there.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Why should Google be allowed to tie the search provider for the phone to the app store provider for the phone? That's the kind of thing Microsoft got shat on for."
Because Google is an independent business competing in a fiercely competitive market? And that gives them the right to bundle their product line anyway they want? Microsoft was a declared monopoly competing against no one in the desktop market - and actively attempting to prevent anyone from competing with them w.r.t to browser.
American analogy: why does McDonalds force me to use their french fries in a combo deal? They should be required to offer Burger King's fries, or cook the ones I bring form home for me! Where do I file my complaint?
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Because Google is an independent business competing in a fiercely competitive market?
Really? Where is the fierce competition for Google Play? I have three app stores installed on my phone and tablet:
If you ask 10 people on the street what options there are for buying Android apps, how many of them would you
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The fierce competition for Google Play is the iPhone app store.
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If you ask 1billion people in China what alternatives there are to Google Play, they'll just stare at you blankly until you clarify that Google Play is the default Android app store. Then they'll stare at you blankly some more since they've never heard of it.
Just because something is the most popular in your area does not automagically make it a monopoly. Microsoft got taken to task for a whole host of things. Bundling only became anti-competitive once it was shown that they were a monopoly. To be a monopol
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There is no such thing as a "declared monopoly", the government court cases we regularly refer to here on Slashdot that covered such issues as bundling IE, preventing OEMs from installing third party software, bullying OEMs into not carrying competitors products etc were the thing which proved Microsoft had a monopoly and that they were abusin
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You mean like the franchise model that McDonalds operates in many countries of the world (including the UK), where this is (based on how a local franchisee described it to me) exactly the approach (all or nothing. You can't just sell the burgers, you have to adhere to the whole brand identity, right down to the WiFi if you offer it. The only exception is the right to opt out of SOME of the promotions.)?
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those are mickey D's requirements on the franchisee. The GP is talking about bundling the burger and the fries to the customers.
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That is why I was replying to the comment I replied to, not that of the GP. The post I replied to was referring to McD setting restrictions on an intermediary between themselves and the customer (and comparing it, rather appropriately, to the actions of Google as described in TFS), and highlighting how it differed from the GP's analogy of McD setting restrictions on what they offer direct to the customer (this time offering another appropriate comparison, this time to Apple/iOS).
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> Just my $0.04 (At current exchange rates, my £0.02 is worth more than your $0.02.
That's kind of silly. The expression is my two cents not my two pence.
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Thanks for reminding me... Haven't visited the main /. site in a long time. I only normally browse via mobile device, so I get the mobile site that hides everyone's signatures.
I assume that you have opted to criticise the sig because you can no longer find fault with the body of the comment itself?
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I think we were both right! Reasonable minds can differ.
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There is no such thing as a "declared monopoly"
umm what about utilities? and sports leagues like the NFL?
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I think we all see the surface parallels with Microsoft, but the problem is that all Android's competitors are significantly MORE tied and MORE bundled. Historically Apple hasn't even let people put apps on their own app store that compete with their built in apps! Don't even think abou
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Probably not, because those apps depend on a lot of Google's other products. It's not just the play store to obtain those apps, it's also Play Services, Gmail, Youtube, and Maps. If you were to remove those apps, you'd actually break a lot of apps that get distributed via the play store.
- Without Play Services you'd break a LOT of apps as it provides a lot of API extensions not found in base Android (the reason these functions are built into Play Services rather than AOSP is so that Google can continue prov
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Sure, you can go with a lesser known app store, but you lose a good chunk of apps in the process.
Name a few?
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Clarification: Name a few apps that you cannot find in "lesser" apps stores.
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Their main complaint here is not just the tie-in, but that it applies all across the regional markets. In other words, if some Android manufacturer makes a deal with Yandex to ship Yandex apps, or set Yandex as default search, on Android phones sold in Russia (which is quite reasonable, since many Russian users expect those anyway), they can no longer preinstall Google apps on their Android phones sold in US.
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You can't ship a device with the Google Play store installed or available without also being required to have the default search engine for the handset set to Google.
Yes you can. There was an active complaint by users a while back that Sprint (I think) were shipping Android devices with Bing as the default search provider.
What you can't do is ship the device with the non-google provided version of Android (i.e. Cyanogenmod) and have the Play Store preloaded. This is also while Google apps are a separate download for Cyanogenmod users.
Microsoft was taken to task for being a monopoly and then bundling apps anti-competitively. Google is not a monopoly and there are mobile
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... and the "difficulty" in changing the browser [...] is about the same as android.
I was under the impression (not that I've ever lowered myself far enough to use an iPhone) that any alternative browser you can get through the App Store is nothing more than a "skin" over the in-built Safari browser of iOS... no option for different rendering engines, etc. Was I mistaken in this understanding?
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"Difficult to install" = "Difficult to give hardware manufacturers a reason not to install".
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I think one of the reasons Amazon's phone failed was because it was tightly coupled with the amazon echosystem and not the google echosystem---the same exact phone sold by "google" [e.g. marketed as "nexus" line] (even at the same price) would've done MUCH better in the market. It's not just "uh oh, you're bundling your services with the apps"... it's that people actually *want* those apps and services and often wouldn't buy the device otherwise.
Also, plenty of manufacturers roll their own Android, so what
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You can disable the included applications on an Android device, but device manufacturers tend not to include the "root" tools needed to reclaim the SSD space that they occupy.
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Abusing a monopoly is illegal. Saying "you can't have this unless you buy that" can be illegal. Saying, "we'll charge you more if you buy from our competitors" is illegal. Owning a large company and not donating to senators is technically not illegal, but it leaves you open to intense anti-trust
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That's why you can't stop using google [theguardian.com], or have any other choices [alternativeto.net], or even change the search engine simply by yourself. [howtogeek.com]
I'm pretty sure that yandex knows how to do all this, so claiming it's "difficult to install" must mean "difficult to compete".
E
I am fortunate to be in Canada, where I can use optionally use the yandex search engine. It is as extensive or better than google. Please don't believe that google has exclusivity on intelligence and capabilities.
Right now, because my keyboard has Canada French layout, Google has decided I want their searches in French. I never selected that language, though the keyboard I use is standard for Quebec.
Google, stop being stupid.
Re: The difference between this and Microsoft (Score:3)
As I understood it the difference is that Internet Explorer was a web browser that could not be uninstalled, and while individuals could and did install other web browsers, the Microsoft OS only used Internet Explorer to do its updates/upgrades via Internet Explorer.
While in this case, the issue is choice of search engine in the Android OS. And that can be (and is) changed by the individual. Unlike the Microsoft case, upgrades occur through the OS not the choice of search engine. There is no vendor lock i
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As I understood it the difference is that Internet Explorer was a web browser that could not be uninstalled, and while individuals could and did install other web browsers, the Microsoft OS only used Internet Explorer to do its updates/upgrades via Internet Explorer.
That was part of the argument, but the bigger part was that IE was free (subsidised by the OS cost) and bundled with the OS, which made it almost impossible to compete with. Netscape was the incumbent with the dominant market share in the browser market, but they charged $30 (I think), or free for noncommercial use. IE was free, which got them most commercial customers (they were paying for it with Windows and had no option to not pay for it if they didn't want it). It was preinstalled, which got them th
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Microsoft's intent was to charge for Internet Explorer as part of Microsoft Plus!. It was Netscape giving their browser away for free for non-commercial use which made that impossible.
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This seems to be the fundamental difference between the US attitude and the rest of the world. In Europe the issue of Media Player having to be there and be the default media player as enforced by contract was an issue, which resulted in the Windows N editions. In the US that was never considered a problem.
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Actually, MS claimed that even they COULDN'T unbundle IE from Windows for many years. Only when it was demonstrated in court that it was possible did they backtrack.
The fact is that MS didn't give you a choice. The only choice was to suffer the install of IE, ignore it repeated attempts to be the default, and have to leave it installed forever handling some things that it never needed to be handling.
And then the EU quashed all that crap and made them put a browser choice screen on every PC in the EU for s
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Better explanation (Score:5, Informative)
There is a post [habrahabr.ru] (in Russian) that explains Yandex's position better.
It's quite long-winded, but boils down to the fact that several phone manufacturers were told that they will be globally denied access to Google services if they ship a Russian regional version with Yandex's competing services pre-installed.
It's not just a matter of "in Russia, choose between having Google Play / Google services and Yandex", but "try to pre-install competitors in one market and we won't give you Google Play access anywhere".
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P.S. Google Translate in a pastebin (since the page has enormous amount of comments, it won't directly translate): http://pastebin.com/b56n2TnV [pastebin.com]
Re:Better explanation (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, sorry, even with crap translation, it doesn't read like that to me.
What they want is to be bundled as the default for everything by default. It doesn't really say that Google are strong-arming them into only ever providing Google and nothing else. There's nothing stopping Yandex putting out Yandex Android with all the defaults changed, but they'd have to convince phone manufacturers to use it, and then access to Google Play Store isn't guaranteed (but if it uses Android, you have a legal right to use the store as it says so in the Play EULA... like cheap tablets that don't get the official Google Play go-ahead and don't bundle it, Google aren't stopping you installing it yourself if that's what you want to do - and they don't even need to go that far... how many other types of machines are you allowed to connect to the iTunes app store and download your stuff with?).
Sorry, but it sounds like sour grapes to me. And it's a lot of waffle surrounding that the fact the PEOPLE don't change the defaults, not that the defaults aren't changeable with a 5-second search of how to do so.
Comparing it to the monopoly market position of bundling IE on Windows in a captive market is just hyperbole. If Google said to manufacturers you can only ever sell phones with Android, if you sell a phone with anything else we'll stop giving you any of our Android products and you won't be able to sell them, the default has to be left at Chrome when you sell, we'll never remove Chrome from the Android system because it's "all one thing", and they owned more than 90% of the market, and Chrome had almost zero market usage outside of such monopolistic actions, then it would be comparable. They aren't. By a long-shot.
Nothing is stopping them selling a Yandex Android phone with Yandex as the default and Yandex app store. In the same way that many of the cheap Android devices worldwide do just that. The fact is, though, that they want the Google name for the App Store so they don't have to pay a penny for running that, and run stock Android, but still have their search engine be the default, and expect Google to jump in and help them when the system is all open anyway.
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In fact you don't even need to search how to change the defaults. When you install an app that offers new defaults the next time you perform an action that it supports a request pops up asking which app you want and if you want to set it as the new default or be asked again next time.
Does Yandex own towers? (Score:2)
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Tower ownership is not an issue in Russia, unlike US, because mobile operators are decoupled from phone manufacturers. All networks are GSM and inter-compatible, so the same phone works on them all, and people can switch freely. The operators also don't control the software that runs on the phones.
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I'm not sure whether this is the same in Russia, but here in the UK, just because your phone is COMPATIBLE with other operators' networks, doesn't mean that you can just switch networks if you bought your phone through one of them. Even if you have come to the end of your contract (which are almost always set up to ensure that you have, over the life of the contract, paid FAR more than the value of the subsidy applied to your initial purchase of the phone), you will still need to get the operator you acquir
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Strange, because I've used a number of Android devices that don't even have Google search on at all but some proprietary junk instead.
Not saying Google Search wasn't on there, but it wasn't shipped as the default.
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The handset makers are not permitted to change the defaults
[citation needed]
Every handset maker releases their own custom versions of Android. And then they never want to support their old hardware because fuck you buy a new phone that's why. Which is the reason I only buy Nexus devices.
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Actually that's exactly what they're claiming.
"If you ship a phone with non-google services we'll cut off your access to Google services globally".
Whether this is actually true or not we don't know, but it's what they're alleging.
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Let me be the first to say that Yandex sounds like a bunch of whiny losers if this is their comparison. Google isn't imposing anti-competitive contracts on OEMs and using secret APIs to give their products a home turf advantage. They've open sourced the entire OS and most of the problems getting a competing product on an Android device is due to OEM malfeasance.
Google play services are not open source and whose APIs are by design required to run an increasing number of Apps. Google play services are available for bundling exclusively at Googles pleasure on their terms.
If you don't have Google play not only is the Google appstore unavailable multiple Google services integrating with Google play services are also unavailable to you.
If Microsoft had competed with Be and Netscape back then like this, I'd be running Firefox on BeOS R10.5 not Windows 7.
They are clearly leveraging their position to enforce artificial dependencies and behaviors favorable to themselves just like Micro$of
Worst case?... Google gets banned in Russia? (Score:2)
... which means what for Google's bottom line? What is the ad revenue in Russia at this point? I'm guessing it is less then what google gets from Spain. So... who cares.
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Its the worst case. And the issue is what online revenue is worth in Russia. I rather suspect it is marginal on google's bottom line.
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... abandoning a multi trillion dollar market is not something google would take lightly.
China. <<---
BTW, I've just found out the hard way that G-Translate's handwriting recognition for Chinese characters is network dependent. Downloading the Chinese dictionary allows you to translate between English and Pinyin or characters well enough offline, but too bad for you if you don't already know how the character is pronounced. (Sometimes you can make an educated guess, but not always.) I suppose it would be a bit much to expect them to tell you "The functionality that really ma
Google on the way down? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Google on the way down? (Score:4, Interesting)
For me, it is very, very sad, but Google seems to be becoming a very abusive company. The days of "Do no evil" seem to be ended.
Those days never really existed except in the minds of those that believed the marketing dribble.
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You could have argued that they may have existed in the beginning, but once Google did an IPO, that was the end of it.
Then again, if I remember correctly, Google never said their official motto was "Do no evil", but that was more like a goal they aspire to.
Amazing how an IPO can make all such aspirations vanish overnight, eh? :-)
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That may be so, but someone suing them, particularly in a Russian court, isn't evidence of anything one way or the other.
Is Google a monopoly? (Score:2)
Or are the rules different in Russia, that you don't have to be a monopoly in order to come under antitrust regulations?
Re:Is Google a monopoly? (Score:4, Interesting)
Somehow, I see this as a reaction to the sanctions imposed over the Ukraine mess. I think that someone in Russia is thinking that hitting Google will hurt the US Government in some way....
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Of course the other way to look at this is as one of linked services - Ford can't sell a car that mandates Ford tyres or Ford petrol, so maybe Google can't sell an OS that mandates Google search.
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Close. It's more accurate to say that the Ford car is going to have Ford tyres on the hub and Ford petrol in the tank, and you can replace the tyres with Michelins and drain the tank and replace the Ford petrol with BP, if that's your preference, but it's a pain in the backside. It could be further complicated by Ford if they wanted to make sure that the tyres had a strange diametre or width and you had to use specific rims on the car because they used some kind of proprietary interlock that would make su
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1) Google doesn't sell Android. They give it away for free. They make their money from the search and other services they've embedded into their version of it. So telling them they can't do that is tantamount to telling them they can't give it away for free and must sell licenses for it.
2) They don't mandate
Don't the Russians know ? (Score:2)
____________
Breaking news : Scientists have now mapped the gene that makes them map genes.
A Russian anti-trust probe... (Score:3, Informative)
...is jab in the back with an AK-47.
At this moment of global history, can anyone take a Russian anti-trust probe seriously?
Between Putin's crony capitalism, the sheer amount of corruption in Russia and the geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West there's a whole laundry list of reasons to not believe that an anti-trust probe of Google has is honestly motivated.
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If you read the details of their complaint, it actually has some merit.
Whether they waited for a "convenient" time to voice it, is another matter.
It's opensource. (Score:2)
If you don't like play services, then replace them. Android is there, in the open for you to modify.
I'm not sure how this complaint can even get made when what Apple is doing with iOS is 1000x worse in terms of restrictive behavior.
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Yandex claim that manufacturer are being forced by Google to either installer their service on ALL of their handsets or on NONE. This forbids them of making a Russian edition using Yandex. That's exactly the same as Microsoft forbidding OEM to install Linux.
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With Microsoft there were only what two operating systems at the time, Windows and OS/2.
You forgot Mac OS classic.
With cell phones and tablets there are a lot more choices
Namely what? I see Android and Windows Phone. If you include iOS then you have to include Mac OS classic in your previous claim.
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Err... no. There *were* other operating systems back in the days MS got busted for. Some of them ran on the same hardware as MS-DOS and windows, namely DR-DOS and CP/M 86.
Microsoft's apologists liked to float the myth that MS was busted for having a monopoly. That wasn't the case; they were busted for using anti-competitive practices that prevented the entry of competitors into "their" market. For example they would only allow manufacturers to sell DOS or Windows preinstalled if they didn't sell computers
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Google has never done that. If you are an Android phone manufacturer you can sell Windows phones as well. As a consumer you can change the search engine to Bing if you like; or if you prefer you can buy a phone that defaults to Bing. Manufacturers can and do sell tablets without the Google Play app store, or even with an alternative app store.
What Yandex seems to be claiming is that manufacturers are, in fact, strong-armed to decide whether they want to ship all their phones with Google Play, or none of them. They are specifically claiming that a manufacturer was prevented from entering into an agreement with them to pre-install Yandex software, because they want to ship phones in other countries with Play, and Google's terms for Play require that they ship it in all countries.
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Google has never done that. If you are an Android phone manufacturer you can sell Windows phones as well. As a consumer you can change the search engine to Bing if you like; or if you prefer you can buy a phone that defaults to Bing. Manufacturers can and do sell tablets without the Google Play app store, or even with an alternative app store.
What Yandex seems to be claiming is that manufacturers are, in fact, strong-armed to decide whether they want to ship all their phones with Google Play, or none of them. They are specifically claiming that a manufacturer was prevented from entering into an agreement with them to pre-install Yandex software, because they want to ship phones in other countries with Play, and Google's terms for Play require that they ship it in all countries.
Except that isn't quite true. Google doesn't stop Android phone manufacturers from shipping phones with Yandex installed. What phone manufacturers can't do is ship Android phones that doesn't have Google Apps (i.e. Search, Play Store, Mail, Calendar, Music and Maps) as the default. They certainly can bundle Yandex apps with their Android phones providing those apps are not shipped as the default instead of Google apps. Look at all the apps that are bundled in Samsung TouchWiz and HTC Sense UI.
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I think it's still severe enough. If they want to bundle those apps as the default in Russia, they should be able to do so without losing the ability to bundle Google apps by default in other countries.
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I think it's still severe enough. If they want to bundle those apps as the default in Russia, they should be able to do so without losing the ability to bundle Google apps by default in other countries.
I disagree. I see no reason why Google should create exceptions. Phone manufacturers don't license Android on a per market basis. Android license covers the global market and if manufactures break the licensing agreement in one market then that should that be enough to invalidate the license to use Android in every market. Google can't have exclusions if they want users to have a uniform experience.
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Well, why shouldn't phone manufacturers license Android on a per market basis? Or at least on a per device basis (and then sell a particular device only in one particular market)?
The problem is that this results in strangulation of local services that are otehrwise competitive in a regional market (because, for a particular country, they may well be better than Google's - e.g. Yandex Maps are generally better than Google Maps in Russia, so users would prefer them). The end result is Google monopoly everywhe
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No link to obamasweapon.com? You're obviously one of THEM, trying to misdirect us.
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Is this an attempt at passing the Turing Test? If so, you FAIL!
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"Wat?" is a perfectly acceptable response to the GGP's schizophasia.
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Waaaahhhhh, we're too fucking stupid to take the android source code and modify it so that we can do what we wanttttt!!! Bwaaaaahhhh, Waahhhh Wahhhh /inserting-pacifier.
I want to make an Android phone that ships with the Google Play store and has Bing as the default search engine.
Can I do that?
That's effectively what they want to do here, but Google doesn't want that. If you have Play then you have to have google as the default search.
But no, of course it's down to stupidity on Yandex's part. I forgot that google can do no wrong. Carry on.
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Waaaahhhhh, we're too fucking stupid to take the android source code and modify it so that we can do what we wanttttt!!! Bwaaaaahhhh, Waahhhh Wahhhh /inserting-pacifier.
I want to make an Android phone that ships with the Google Play store and has Bing as the default search engine.
Can I do that?
That's effectively what they want to do here, but Google doesn't want that. If you have Play then you have to have google as the default search.
But no, of course it's down to stupidity on Yandex's part. I forgot that google can do no wrong. Carry on.
Google default engine is not baked into the phone and users can switch the default search engine to Bing if they like. That is easy to do. If you are going to jump on Google case because their apps are the default on their operation system then you should also take issue with (1) Apple whose services are the default on iOS and can't be changed. Not to mention, Apple generally doesn't allow third party apps that compete with their apps in the Apple Store. (2) Microsoft 8.1 operating system ships with Bing as
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Waaaahhhhh, we're too fucking stupid to take the android source code and modify it so that we can do what we wanttttt!!! Bwaaaaahhhh, Waahhhh Wahhhh /inserting-pacifier.
I want to make an Android phone that ships with the Google Play store and has Bing as the default search engine.
Can I do that?
That's effectively what they want to do here, but Google doesn't want that. If you have Play then you have to have google as the default search.
But no, of course it's down to stupidity on Yandex's part. I forgot that google can do no wrong. Carry on.
Google default engine is not baked into the phone and users can switch the default search engine to Bing if they like. That is easy to do. If you are going to jump on Google case because their apps are the default on their operation system then you should also take issue with (1) Apple whose services are the default on iOS and can't be changed. Not to mention, Apple generally doesn't allow third party apps that compete with their apps in the Apple Store. (2) Microsoft 8.1 operating system ships with Bing as the default search engine. (3) Amazon version of Android ships with Yahoo as the default search engine that can't be changed.
Right, but you're trying to change the argument - we all know that Microsoft's and Apple's policies on iOS and Win 8 are as they are and they get bashed for them all the time, but somehow it;s ok for Google to do this?
Sure you can change the search engine but *a vendor cannot set a different default out of the box if they want to also ship the Google Play store*. That is what this is about (among other things). Not whether you can change the default search engine as a user of the phone once you've bought it