Google Feared Samsung Galaxy Store and Tried To Quash It, Lawsuit Alleges (theverge.com) 34
Google used anticompetitive practices in an attempt to "preemptively quash" Samsung's Galaxy Store, and prevent it from becoming a viable competitor to its own Play Store. From a report: That's according to an antitrust lawsuit filed by a coalition of three dozen state attorney general, which accuses Google of illegally attempting to control app distribution on Android. The suit also alleges Google paid off app developers to stop them circumventing its store. The allegations challenge one of Google's core defenses of its policies, which is that unlike Apple's iOS rules, Android allows both competing app stores and side-loading apps directly. The lawsuit is effectively claiming that this openness is a facade, because while customers technically have the choice of where to get their apps from, Google's business practices have prevented a viable app store competitor from emerging.
"Google felt deeply threatened when Samsung began to revamp its own app store, the Samsung Galaxy Store," the suit says, and describes Google's approach to the competing store as "a threat it needed to preemptively quash." The suit outlines a range of tactics Google allegedly used to prevent Samsung's store from becoming a viable competitor. It claims Google used revenue share agreements with Android phone manufacturers that "outright prohibited" pre-installing some other app stores, and that it made "a direct attempt to pay Samsung to abandon relationships with top developers and scale back competition through the Samsung Galaxy Store."
"Google felt deeply threatened when Samsung began to revamp its own app store, the Samsung Galaxy Store," the suit says, and describes Google's approach to the competing store as "a threat it needed to preemptively quash." The suit outlines a range of tactics Google allegedly used to prevent Samsung's store from becoming a viable competitor. It claims Google used revenue share agreements with Android phone manufacturers that "outright prohibited" pre-installing some other app stores, and that it made "a direct attempt to pay Samsung to abandon relationships with top developers and scale back competition through the Samsung Galaxy Store."
Fear... (Score:3)
...isn't the reason.
Greed is the only truth corporate America knows, it is sole the reason for every action taken.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Where is the innovation from non-corporate anywhere else?
Just curious, but are you motivated solely by greed? Or do you tally you essential monthly needs, and then tell your employer that you do not want to make more than that?
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Where is the innovation from non-corporate anywhere else?
NIH is one great example.
Just curious, but are you motivated solely by greed? Or do you tally you essential monthly needs, and then tell your employer that you do not want to make more than that?
That isn't an accurate analogy. I'm not being dishonest to obtain my paycheck. I don't need to actively undermine my co-workers or other competitors to increase my "value" to the company. My employer and I have agreed on what my services are worth, I provide those services on weekly basis.
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That isn't an accurate analogy. I'm not being dishonest to obtain my paycheck. I don't need to actively undermine my co-workers or other competitors to increase my "value" to the company. My employer and I have agreed on what my services are worth, I provide those services on weekly basis.
I like how you lump all corporations together and label them greedy and then try to separate workers from being lumped into one group. There are tons of workers who will, absolutely, back-stab and fuck over other employees to get ahead.
Nice try but that's not how it's done. If you're gonna label every corporation because of the actions of some (even most) then we get to label all employees based on the actions of some.
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Where is the innovation from non-corporate anywhere else?
Just curious, but are you motivated solely by greed? Or do you tally you essential monthly needs, and then tell your employer that you do not want to make more than that?
Well, I look at it this way - who would benefit the most from closing down of kneecapping the App store? Programmers that can now have pretty free rein with malware.
Whihc is why I always veiw their screams of outrage with a jaded eye.
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They feared it would cut into their fat profit margins and that would in turn affect their quarterly bonuses and stock options.
Much better summary (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a dupe of yesterday's story [slashdot.org], but yesterday's summary made no sense [slashdot.org]. This summary does a much better job at conveying what the case is actually about.
It isn't about taking a 30% cut or enforcing that cut (though the attorneys general aren't fans of it, they don't seem to be suggesting it's illegal). It isn't about being the dominant app store for a phone platform. It's about using the claim that "side loading ensures no one is forced to use our app store" as a legal and regulatory shield while secretly spiking competing app stores to ensure that everyone is forced to use your app store.
It's possible this may be a stepping stone to going after Apple, given that Apple is even more locked down in this regard, but Apple never claimed they supported side loading so they never put themselves on the hook in the way that Google has. While various regulatory bodies are already going after Apple with regards to some of this stuff, Google is a much easier target if the secret deals and other behavior alleged in this case is proven to be true.
I'm an Android user, not a Samsung user (Score:2)
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i love Samsung galaxy hardware (Score:5, Insightful)
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There OS is a lot less "in the way" than it was years ago.
Considering android itself changes it's UI, it's hard for me to fault Samsung for wanting to have control over it's UI.
And unlike some other Android products (like Android TV), Samsung doesn't prevent you from changing the launcher.
Now if you want to complain about Samsung breaking functionality if you root it (like with Samsung Pay), then I am in agreement.
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You can change the launcher on Android TV. Like many others, after Google decided to take over about 1/3 of people's screens with ads for streaming services, I changed the default launcher on my Shield TV. Think the only difference is it requires an ADB command to make it stick as the default. Little more than a one-time annoyance really.
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I have a shield TV as well. It's a one time anoyance that most people would know was an option. Additionally, it makes it less convenient to test drive new launchers as dailies
Re: i love Samsung galaxy hardware (Score:2)
I'm writing this from S9+ flashed with e foundation [e.foundation] mobile OS. No spyware, no crapware. Works great. There's only a few apps I can't find in F-Droid [f-droid.org] store, but those can be found in Aurora [f-droid.org] store.
If you don't feel comfortable with flashing custom ROMs, you can buy [esolutions.shop] phone with e os preinstalled.
They shouldn't have cared (Score:3)
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if [the Samsung app store] flopped then how is Google at fault?
How and why a thing flops matters. If it had flopped on its own, Google wouldn't be at fault, but the suit alleges that isn't what happened. Rather, the suit alleges that Google paid off developers to not distribute their apps in competing app stores and instituted rules for their manufacturing partners that prohibited them from installing competing app stores if they wanted to install Play.
That said, I'm not sure how strong those arguments actually are. For instance, nVidia was fined tens of millions of do
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The rules change when you have a dominant position. Neither Microsoft nor Sony has a dominant position in the 'games' market. When they do exclusives it is just competition amongst what are basically equals (as far as market is concerned). That is healthy. Google, on the other hand, has an overwhelmingly dominant position in Android App distribution. When they do exclusives it is not to 'compete' with the smaller players, it is to eliminate them. That is not healthy.
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You've fallen into the trap of conflating platforms with markets that many Slashdotters have. While the two are tied together, they are not the same.
Neither Microsoft nor Sony has a dominant position in the 'games' market.
Google [...] has an overwhelmingly dominant position in Android App distribution.
These statements are both true, but the comparison is apples-to-oranges. You're comparing a market—games—to a platform—Android. For instance, consider these two statements that are just as true, but invert the comparison to make it oranges-to-apples instead:
Sony has an overwhelmingly dominant position in PlayStation game distribution
Neither Google nor Apple has a dominant position in the 'apps' market.
In the same way that gaming is a market that spans many platforms, including Xbox and P
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You seem to be the one who has fallen into a trap. A market is where competing items of a similar nature are sold. 'Game consoles' is a market. The competitors in that market are Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, etc. When one of those makes an 'exclusive' deal, it is to try to convince buyers to purchase their product - a console. The different products all provide the same general thing.
'Smartphones' is a market. The competitors there are Apple, Samsung, etc. with Apple and Google being the OS providers. No
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A market is where competing items of a similar nature are sold. 'Game consoles' is a market. The competitors in that market are Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, etc. When one of those makes an 'exclusive' deal, it is to try to convince buyers to purchase their product - a console. The different products all provide the same general thing.
Sure. Platforms are frequently products in a market as well, so I agree with all of this. It doesn’t affect anything I said, however. Just as there exists both a games market, which you previously brought up, and a game consoles market, which you just brought up, there also exists an apps market and an app stores market.
On the other hand, the 'Apps for IOS' and 'Apps for Android' are NOT the same market. No app that you purchase for Android is going to work on iOS and vice versa.
While a purchase for Android may not work on iOS, it does displace a purchase on iOS, which is one of the ways that we draw a line around a market. Consider: if you owned both iOS and
Of course. (Score:2)
This is how megacorps do business:
1. break anti-competition laws
2. get a slap on the wrist and pay a few million
3. profit!!!
This formula hasn't failed for many decades and few in congress willing to make meaningful changes to change this.
Someone at google needs to grow a pair... (Score:2)
They sold Motorola because Samsung was scared of google cutting them off and this.
This lack of courage will undo them, specially that samsung its clear in their intentions to steal android away, with MS and Amazon help.
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You have no idea.
I did some contract work at Google for a time, nowhere near their Android stuff, but the company is now full of risk-adverse middle management types. I once proposed collapsing two nearly identical procedures into one, which would have required making basically a single edit to a single document, just deleting a single section from the document. Maybe 10 minutes' work, tops, including writing an email or something to explain the change. Everyone agreed it was a good idea, but no one was wil
So much for an open platform (Score:2)
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The open Android idea died years ago. Look at the state of AOSP. Most of the useful stuff has been stuffed into proprietary binary blobs like Google Play Services which requires you sign an agreement with Google to get access to. An agreement they can then bludgeon you over the head with if you start getting any funny ideas about trying to compete directly with Google. They must have poached some Apple execs because the tactics are too similar.
Android is free but.... (Score:2)
Although Android is free but other Google apps are not free. According to rumors, Google threatened to cancel license for all of Google apps for Samsung if they built their own app store. No GMail, Google Maps etc. Amazon Fire OS had similar issues as well. MacOS built on Open Source Mach Kernel does not make it free or open and same way, Android phones built on top of open/free Android Kernel does not make it any more open than MacOS.
Samsung Galaxy Store is junk. (Score:3)
Google feared the Samsung Galaxy Store? That's funny.
My opinion (Score:1)