India's Top Court Rejects Google Plea To Block Android Antitrust Ruling in Major Blow (techcrunch.com) 21
Google has been dealt a significant blow in one of its key overseas markets. India's Supreme Court on Thursday declined to block an antitrust order that requires the Android-maker to make a series of changes that could topple its financial viability. From a report: India's apex court rejected to block the ruling against Google by the nation's antitrust watchdog Competition Commission of India. The court extended the deadline for enforcement of CCI's order by one week, however. The matter will now go back to the country's appellate tribunal, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), where Google previously failed to secure any relief.
The Supreme Court has directed NCLAT to make its decision by March 31. The challenge for Google is that unless NCLAT reaches a decision in Google's favor by this month, the tech giant will have to make a series of changes to Android. [...] The CCI has ordered Google to not require licensing of its Play Store to be linked with mandating installation of several Google apps such as Chrome and YouTube. The watchdog has also ordered Google to allow removal of all its apps from phones and give smartphone users the ability to change their search engine provider. The CCI also fined Google $162 million in its first order.
The Supreme Court has directed NCLAT to make its decision by March 31. The challenge for Google is that unless NCLAT reaches a decision in Google's favor by this month, the tech giant will have to make a series of changes to Android. [...] The CCI has ordered Google to not require licensing of its Play Store to be linked with mandating installation of several Google apps such as Chrome and YouTube. The watchdog has also ordered Google to allow removal of all its apps from phones and give smartphone users the ability to change their search engine provider. The CCI also fined Google $162 million in its first order.
At first blush, I don't see a problem with that... (Score:3)
I've never liked un-removable apps being preinstalled. I'm less against having default apps preinstalled but I can see why a carrier might not want that; as long as the carrier doesn't block the user from installing chrome and youtube, I don't see a particular problem with not preinstalling it.
Android is not secure: Its a client OS. (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the things that people need to understand is that Android was created by Google simply to act as its own operating system to be a client to collect data that they could consume and use. They literally just took Linux and added some extra stuff to it, and then called it a different operating system. When, in reality, it's basically just Linux with some extra drivers.
One of the big problems with this is that Google has intentionally refused to lock it down the way that Linux can be locked down in order to assure that people's data on their phones is actually secure, because those security things get in the way of Google getting the data it wants from users.
This is probably the first time I've ever seen India do something right.
So, the response will be... (Score:1)
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Google didn't "make" Android free. Android is open source, though Google uses a proprietary modification and tries hard to keep people like you from learning the true state of affairs. Perhaps if India tells Google to pound sand, they'll develop their own colony of app writers, which could work out for a lot of people.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/using-android-without-google/ [makeuseof.com]
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Google didn't "make" Android free. Android is open source
Some of Android is OSS because Google was complying with the license, like the kernel. Some of it is OSS because Google wanted someone else to maintain it. And some of it is not OSS, it's in Play Services or whatever — and while there are OSS alternatives to it, they aren't necessarily always stable. And this ruling is in part about that.
More of Android could be replaced with closed components going forwards, and it's unclear what that would do to its popularity with handset makers. As the OS does mor
Go India! (Score:4, Interesting)
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"especially on a constrained resources platform."
So then, what platforms have unlimited resources?
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A Turing machine?
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I run computer systems for a living. I am daily reminded that there is no system you can't run out of resources if you don't keep tabs on it.
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Big market, but... (Score:3)
India is a very big market, but it is actively hostile towards foreign businesses.
The hostility makes historical sense -it has not been that long since India was under British Imperial rule. India wants to ensure that foreign companies doing business in India are beneficial to India.
India is a large enough market ("The Next Billion") that companies are willing to give a lot to do business there. They wont give everything tho. Many companies have pulled out of India after being asked for more than they are willing to give.
It is a fine line between protectionism, and isolationism.
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India is a very big market, but it is actively hostile towards foreign businesses.
Spoken as if the other major markets are not just as hostile towards foreign businesses.
India is just doing what every other major markets do, which is protecting their own interests. India, or any other country for that matter, have no obligations to let foreign companies go in and reap profits while damaging local interests.
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I was thinking that ruling would be unreasonably hostile to Google, maybe asking them to remove the 30% tax, but it is surprisingly very reasonable. I would say it is not at all about Google being foreign but about letting some competetion in through, which is what anti-trust all about. Android is already an extremely locked down operating system. as it is, iOS being the very definition of it. We can't take an android phone and run a custom OS beside android on it. This is a step in right direction.
ha. (Score:1)
Don't count out Microsoft (Score:1)
SexyPG89 (Score:1)
sexypg1688 (Score:1)
sexypg1688 (Score:1)