Google, in Fight Against Record EU Fine, Slams Regulators for Ignoring Apple (reuters.com) 44
Alphabet unit Google on Monday blasted EU antitrust regulators for ignoring rival Apple as it launched a bid to get Europe's second-highest court to annul a record 4.34-billion euro ($5.1 billion) fine related to its Android operating system. From a report: Far from holding back rivals and harming users, Android has been a massive success story of competition at work, representatives of Google told a panel of five judges at the General Court at the start of a five-day hearing. The European Commission fined Google in 2018, saying that it had used Android since 2011 to thwart rivals and cement its dominance in general internet search. Regardless of how the court rules, Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook will have to change their business models in the coming years to ensure a level playing field for rivals following tough new rules proposed by European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager.
"The Commission shut its eyes to the real competitive dynamic in this industry, that between Apple and Android," Google's lawyer Meredith Pickford told the court. "By defining markets too narrowly and downplaying the potent constraint imposed by the highly powerful Apple, the Commission has mistakenly found Google to be dominant in mobile operating systems and app stores, when it was in fact a vigorous market disrupter," he said. Pickford said Android "is an exceptional success story of the power of competition in action."
"The Commission shut its eyes to the real competitive dynamic in this industry, that between Apple and Android," Google's lawyer Meredith Pickford told the court. "By defining markets too narrowly and downplaying the potent constraint imposed by the highly powerful Apple, the Commission has mistakenly found Google to be dominant in mobile operating systems and app stores, when it was in fact a vigorous market disrupter," he said. Pickford said Android "is an exceptional success story of the power of competition in action."
Google hates these cans! (Score:1)
"Hey, he's not carnival personnel!"
Ignoring the fact that Apple's business model for the most part doesn't revolve around tracking users to sell their data.
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I'm absolutely not a fan of Google but Google's business model doesn't revolve around selling users' data either. They sell a service that allows advertisers to provide their advertisement to Google which will then be shown to a target demographic of users. They do indeed monetize user data but that's a very different thing to selling user data.
Re:Google hates these cans! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm absolutely not a fan of Google but Google's business model doesn't revolve around selling users' data either. They sell a service that allows advertisers to provide their advertisement to Google which will then be shown to a target demographic of users. They do indeed monetize user data but that's a very different thing to selling user data.
So they don't sell user data directly they just collect it and use it to sell services. That's still a transitive relationship. Even without directly selling user data to their corporate customers Google's entire business model would still collapse without that mass surveillance. I get that if people use Google mail, Google search or other free Google services they have to put up with this mass surveillance. However, one of the perks I feel entitled to after forking out USD 1000 for an Android phone is privacy so long as I give use Google's and other tech companies' "free" services a wide berth. Come to think of it, I would not shed any tears if there was a law that required any service that I pay any kind of subscription for to come with guaranteed freedom from mass surveillance by the service provider.
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So they don't sell user data directly they just collect it and use it to sell services.
Yes that's correct and the two are very different things.
Even without directly selling user data to their corporate customers Google's entire business model would still collapse without that mass surveillance.
Yes their business model is built on targeted advertising. Apple of course does mass surveillance in that every single thing you ask of Siri is transmitted back to Apple for analysis and, as they were caught doing, often farmed out to external parties to have people listen to and transcribe. These companies use that data to improve their product one way or another. I'm an avid iPhone user but I understand that Apple has just as much information (if no
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So they don't sell user data directly they just collect it and use it to sell services.
Yes that's correct and the two are very different things.
Even without directly selling user data to their corporate customers Google's entire business model would still collapse without that mass surveillance.
Yes their business model is built on targeted advertising. Apple of course does mass surveillance in that every single thing you ask of Siri is transmitted back to Apple for analysis and, as they were caught doing, often farmed out to external parties to have people listen to and transcribe. These companies use that data to improve their product one way or another. I'm an avid iPhone user but I understand that Apple has just as much information (if not more) than Google would have if I were an Android user, it's just that Apple seems to take privacy very seriously in the country I live in (I wouldn't be so keen to use them or Google in China or Russia where both have demonstrated their willingness to bend over to those government demands).
Nice try, but Google does many, many, many orders of magnitude more surveillance than Apple. I know you hate Apple but you really need to put some effort into figuring out when your argument is plausible and when your desperate obsessive compulsive drive to hate on Apple is just making you sound foolish.
However, one of the perks I feel entitled to after forking out USD 1000 for an Android phone is privacy so long as I give use Google's and other tech companies' "free" services a wide berth.
Sure, you can install AOSP (or some derived OS) on that $1000 phone and be rid of Google's software, the same can't be said of Apple's devices but hey that's the difference that comes with free vs proprietary. In China or Russia I would absolutely not use Google or Apple because both kneel to those governments.
I should not have to do that after paying $1000 for an Android phone.
Re: Google hates these cans! (Score:2)
However, one of the perks I feel entitled to after forking out USD 1000 for an Android phone
Google doesn't see a dime of that money. If anything, they've subsidized it. Though if you pay that much for a phone -- any phone -- you're paying for the brand name, not the cost of the hardware or even the patent licensing.
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However, one of the perks I feel entitled to after forking out USD 1000 for an Android phone
Google doesn't see a dime of that money. If anything, they've subsidized it. Though if you pay that much for a phone -- any phone -- you're paying for the brand name, not the cost of the hardware or even the patent licensing.
Nice attempt at a pivot, but even if I paid $50 for an Android phone I'd still expect privacy to be a standard feature cause I paid cash money for the damn thing. Plus, sure, Google does not profit that much from Android sales, but that's not the point now is it? Selling Android phones is a low margin business. The whole point of Android is dominating 80% plus of the smartphone OS market globally and using those devices for data harvesting, that is where Google makes its money.
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I'm absolutely not a fan of Google but Google's business model doesn't revolve around selling users' data either. They sell a service that allows advertisers to provide their advertisement to Google which will then be shown to a target demographic of users. They do indeed monetize user data but that's a very different thing to selling user data.
Google sells user data. Just because you have to assemble IKEA furniture yourself doesn't mean they don't sell furniture. Google provides all the tools and access to data that you need to collect their users' data and all you have to do is read the instructions. Admittedly, that is hard because Google documentation sucks.
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"Slams Regulators for Ignoring Apple" (Score:2)
Re: "Slams Regulators for Ignoring Apple" (Score:2)
Apple is unfair (Score:2, Insightful)
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Market share for Apple is climbing in the biggest EU markets.
Meanwhile they are murdering competition in a ton of fields. Google is a little like Microsoft was, sure monopolistic in its area, but creating lots of room for competition at the same time. When Apple gets the position Google has now, not just in the US but also the EU it will be a far more destructive monopoly than Google due to its vertical integration.
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Market share for Apple is climbing in the biggest EU markets.
The only way that argument works is with extreme cherrypicking.
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
Re:Stats of Android marketshare in Europe (Score:2)
Better (non-paywall) source here:
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-... [statcounter.com]
Europe (mobile OS) [statcounter.com]:
Android: 70%
iOS: 30%
Europe (all OS) [statcounter.com]:
Windows: 37%
Android: 35%
iOS: 16%
OSX: 7%
Linux: 1.6%
STOP: WE'RE NOT THE ONLY NEAR MONOPOLY (Score:2)
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During my times as a moderator in a large forum I've read that line so often from people. To me it just meant that now there's one more user that needs to be penalized in a way.
I do wonder what people expect will happen if they argue that way. There's similarities to the tu quoque fallacy, which might work on a gullible mass of people, but is not very reliable if used in a court unless that is virtually what everyone does and has been doing for a long time without gett
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I think it is more subtle than that.
Google strategy is to show that they have a major competitor: Apple. And if they have competition, then they are not a monopoly.
In your answer, you actually played into their game.
To me it just meant that now there's one more user that needs to be penalized in a way.
You just admitted that Google is not alone, and Google lawyers can work from here.
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I can't find a clear definition that the EU uses here, but so far it's usually not been about having absolutely no competition. It's more about being the largest player on the market and using that powers in anti-competitive ways to establish similar positions when expanding into new markets.
That is something that companies like Alphabet and Amazon do. And as much as I dislike Apple, they're not that deep into that part
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I wasn't aware that Apple had entered the search market, can you link me to the Apple search engine?
The claim is that they were excluding competition in the search market (by allowing you to choose your search engine, but defaulting to their engine...sounds like IE to me...) by utilizing their monopoly in the phone industry (which there is none to speak of, since Apple is a large player as well). They are making, as part of their argument, that they aren't a monopoly, since Apple also sells many phones.
In other news: (Score:2)
"Monopolist's actions attract scrutiny; regulators take action against it. Monopolist has hissy fit.
Film at 11."
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"Monopolist's actions attract scrutiny; regulators take action against it. Monopolist has hissy fit.
Film at 11."
You forgot: "Regulators do not care one bit about the criminals claims of innocence."
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watching these goliaths (Score:2)
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They need to hire some PR people from banks. Banks know how to do evil things without getting any negative repercussions.
If Apple jumped of a bridge. (Score:3)
Especially with Epic not wanting to give up, they'll certainly put more pressure on Apple via non US justice system, like that of the EU. It just takes time to prepare such cases. And as far as monopolies go, Apple might have created a gilded cage economy for itself that is an order of magnitude more restrictive than that of competitors, but Google has a far wider reach with all their different services that enjoy the largest market share.
But this goes to show what Google's general attitude here is, when they have to go down, they'll drag others down with them.
Because that's likely what's going to happen. Pointing fingers at others doing the same or a worse thing isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Users benefit from mobile OS market simplicity (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not saying monopoly is great, but a small number of platforms with the important apps written for all the popular platforms, benefits the user, since a lot of the application is social, which requires universal interoperability. In a many platforms world, app authors could not afford to maintain compatibility with all the platforms. A few dominant platforms would just re-emerge in such a situation.
This is a complex system finding the organization that works best for the users/purchasers that support it.
Any time (Score:2)
Any time you have to use the "But, but, but... Someone else!" argument, you know your position is a losing one.
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Any time you have to use the "But, but, but... Someone else!" argument, you know your position is a losing one.
Indeed. As every 5 year old figures out soon after they try it. Apparently Google cannot afford good lawyers. The only chance they have (well, had) is reducing the fine by full cooperation. That chance is gone. They are stupid for trying to "fight" this.
He did it too, Mom! (Score:2)
Irrelevant.
Vertical integration vs general purpose OS (Score:2)
Comparing Apple and Google is silly both from a market and an anti-trust point of view. One is a vertically integrated company with their own hardware, their own product, their own internal deals with 3rd parties, their own walled garden, and ultimately their own users.
The other provides an OS. An OS used by 3rd party companies with other users, who may engage in business with other companies.
There's a big difference between exerting power over ones self, and exerting power over others. I suspect Google is
Completely irrelevant (Score:2)
Google broke the law. They have to be punished. Pointing to others is the defense strategy of a 5-year old.
The EU will have looked at Apple and will continue to do so and if Apple did something wrong, they will _also_ get punished.
Seriously, can Google not afford good lawyers?
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I find "punishment" to be merely an euphemism for committing crimes with "But he did it first!" as a pseudo-excuse though.
Morally right would be, to banish Google from the EU for let's say 10-20 years. Yes, on the Internet too. And during that time, on any attempt to enter in any way anyway... instant real actual death. (Not to actually do it, but to make sure they won't be that stupid to try.)
Oh we will get to Apple... (Score:1)
You just come first, Google. Because you're the biggest.
Now prepare your anus... :D
(I wish the EU would do more of this stuff, and less von-der-Leyen-style fascism and forcing everyone from Greece to Finland to goose-step to the same regulation that really fits nobody. Because most people aren't against the countries of western Europe teaming up where it's good. They are against being forced even when it isn't good.)