Google's Counteroffer To the Government Trying To Break It Up is Unbundling Android Apps (theverge.com) 12
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Department of Justice's list of solutions for fixing Google's illegal antitrust behavior and restoring competition in the search engine market started with forcing the company to sell Chrome, and late Friday night, Google responded with a list of its own.
Instead of breaking off Chrome, Android, or Google Play as the DOJ's filing considers, Google's proposed fixes aim at the payments it makes to companies like Apple and Mozilla for exclusive, prioritized placement of its services, its licensing deals with companies that make Android phones, and contracts with wireless carriers. They don't address a DOJ suggestion about possibly forcing Google to share its valuable search data with other companies to help their products catch up.
Instead of breaking off Chrome, Android, or Google Play as the DOJ's filing considers, Google's proposed fixes aim at the payments it makes to companies like Apple and Mozilla for exclusive, prioritized placement of its services, its licensing deals with companies that make Android phones, and contracts with wireless carriers. They don't address a DOJ suggestion about possibly forcing Google to share its valuable search data with other companies to help their products catch up.
Nope. Reject that nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of an anti-trust lawsuit, is to increase competition in the marketplace. This will defund Google's competitors in the browser market. Huge mistake. It doubles down on the problem, instead of fixing it.
Guess it all depends how much (Score:1)
DOJ should reject this out of hand (Score:5, Insightful)
The default agreement with Apple isn’t primarily about page views. It’s effectively a massive payout that deters Apple from creating its own search engine. If Apple ever launched a competing service and hard-coded it into every iPhone, Google could lose up to 30 or 40 percent of its traffic instantly—an enormous dent in profit. Remember Apple Maps? Google’s Maps division took a brutal hit when Apple cut Google Maps out by default. Google might not worry about Microsoft these days, but the mere notion of Apple’s next move keeps Larry Page tossing and turning at night.
To me, Chrome and Android pale in comparison to YouTube’s influence. Google funnels a torrent of search traffic toward YouTube—particularly in entertainment categories, where the search results often serve up video link after video link. At times, Google has even run experiments where the entire results page was a wall of YouTube links. Nothing in Google’s concessions appears to loosen its overall stranglehold or slow its cross-service self-preferencing.
The DOJ, in all likelihood, will look at this and say: “Try again.”
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Android’s Grip The proposed contract tweaks for Android might look promising on paper, but they don’t crack Google’s hold on the platform. The real lock is Google Play. You can yank default apps all you want, yet if Google controls the only app store that matters, the company still holds the keys to the kingdom.
I have an s22 and it came with The Play Store and The Galaxy Store. I also can get, but don't have, F-Droid, Amazon Appstore, and a few others.
So I really don't see the issue with acquiring software for your phone from various sources. The only thing that I could see is, possibly during initial setup, the user is given a choice on prefer apps for various categories. You would pick your browser, your app store, and whatever else has Google competing with. Beyond that, what do you want to be done to change th
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Of course Google would make proposals (Score:2)
that are less painful to itself, and have less impact on their monopoly practices.
Kill Mozilla (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't believe they are so brazen as to make that a key part of their ridiculously out of touch pproposal.
But hey, monopolist gonna monopolize.
I hope the next DOJ doesn't pull another Microsoft.
Kubler-Ross Seven stages (Score:2)
I guess we're up to number 3 now: Bargaining.
Counteroffer? (Score:2)
FTA: "Instead of breaking off Chrome, Android, or Google Play as the DOJ’s filing considers, Google’s proposed fixes aim at the payments it makes to companies like Apple and Mozilla for exclusive, prioritized placement of its services".
It seems to me that Google's trying to bargain in bad faith with the DOJ. Justice should shut that shit down hard and fast. I think their reply should specify "breaking off Chrome, Android, and Google Play".
Is Google still in the search engine market? (Score:2)
What do you mean, a monopoly? I haven't used Google search in years, except by accident. This just looks like the Government preying on big companies for not paying enough bribes through their lobbyists. We've seen it before and we'll see it again.
The Chinese are dangerous! Confiscate TikTok for Elon Musk immediately!
Wait, is it too early to start babbling? ...no? Excellent, I'm set for right now.