Google Said to Be Under U.S. Antitrust Scrutiny Over Android

What about Apple, who, if antitrust law applies to them, would be the most egregious antitrust violator of all time in the tech industry, far worse than Google?

Microsoft was convicted for merely including Internet Explorer along with Windows while Apple not only includes Safari, but prevents anyone else from offering browser engines (!) on its platform.

As well as tying iPhone/iPad hardware to iOS and viceversa, iOS to App Store and viceversa, iOS development to OSX, OSX to Mac hardware, App Store to 30% fees on developers and being subject to Apple's arbitrary whims with no recourse including being prevented from competing with any Apple software (under the "cannot replicate system functions" clause).

It seems the theory that "antitrust law only applies to monopolists" is saving them, but of course they are doing enormous damage with their lock-in even with 50% market share due to the large platform network effects.

Microsoft is behind it at least in the EU probe. I would surprised if they had nothing to do with US probe as well.

That aside if the whole idea for the probe is that Google prefers their own services on Android while restricting others - it's going to be a tough one to substantiate given Microsoft already can ship all of their apps as replacement to Google's - Cortana for example.

If Antitrust wasn't just about market share but also profit share then Apple is doing far more to invite a probe than Google in the Smart Phone market.

Here are the options one has when trying to make a phone:

1) Write your own OS from scratch 2) Borrow an existing OS (e.g. Linux) and build all of rest of the layers and services (e.g. Tizen) 3) Borrow an existing mobile OS (e.g. Android), and build all of the rest of the layers and services (FireOS, etc) 4) Borrow an existing mobile OS (e.g. Google Android), and all the layers and services

What vendors seem to be saying is #1, #2, and #3 are "too hard" and that consumers are demanding Google's Apps and Services. What these manufacturers want to do is, design some commodity hardware, put on the stuff consumers are demanding (Google's services), but then load them up with other stuff (which many consumers would call bloatware or junk).

But how easy should one expect it to be to ship a phone? Seriously, 10 or 20 years ago, you not only had to make a lot of custom hardware design, but you had to have a lot of inhouse embedded software engineering. These days, most of this stuff is available off the shelf, and Chinese manufacturers can slap together a new phone and drop Android in it extremely quickly, all at low cost.

If there was no Android, and just two proprietary platforms (iOS + Windows, or iOS + Symbian), their situation would be even worse.

Android's brand already has bad branding from fragmentation and security issues. Paradox of choice tends to drive conformity and commodification, so I'm not sure the situation would be much better otherwise.

If you want to launch consumer phone hardware and get lots of customers, IMHO, you should expect it to be hard and differentiating and have to put in enormous software work. I honestly don't think Android manufacturers are going to standout on small software tweaks and packaging of apps.

If you're an Android manufacturer and you think the key to standing out in innovation, I don't think it's going to come from skinning Android and replacing one of apps on the homescreen. Just IMHO, but this seems more like companies wanting to take shortcuts without putting in the hardwork that Apple or Google have made to convince users of the value of a custom platform.

Isn't the prices of using Google's play services for "free" by manufacturers that you must include so many of Google's Apps? I mean surely they can expect Google to provide it services without a cost or catch.

If manufacturers don't want to do it then they could still use Android san the play services like a lot of Chinese manufacturers are doing.

I find these anti trust investigations against Google that are based on the fact that manufacturers have to bundle Google's App ridiculous.

There are a few interesting questions here. My gut reaction was to say, it doesn't restrict access to Android, anyone can fork it at will. But the specific issue they address is Google's suite of Android apps.

I know for me as an end user, it's very inconvenient when I don't want to use Google's Android, but still want access to the Google Play Store. If you use Cyanogenmod or other custom apps, you have to download google apps. If you use Amazon's Fire devices, the process is a little more inconvenient. On the one hand you have to wonder whether this harms adoption of third-party Android devices, running Cyanogenmod, FireOS, OxygenOS, or any of a number of other custom Android forks. However, Amazon has become somewhat successful in introducing an alternate app marketplace, and this leads to the other question.

Is Google's inclusion of Google apps only on Google android harmful to other app developers? I know personally, if I had a choice between the Google Play Store and the Amazon Appstore, I would choose Google Play 100%. It just has more of the apps I want. But if you want to give users an option, how would you do it? I suppose a scenario similar to what the EU imposed on Microsoft would work, where on activation you would pick from a list of appstores to download to your device. This would at least give users options. I also know personally that I would just stick with the default Maps and Chrome apps if they were bundled with the device instead of giving me a choice of downloading alternate maps and browser apps. This makes it hard for developers of those apps to compete.

Ultimately, this just goes to show that you should take the claim that Android is "open" with a grain of salt. Not only is Google restricting access to Android, there's also this troubling bit from the article:

>“When we say we’re concerned, it’s not only because [the FTC] didn’t do a good investigation the first time around, or the fact that they didn’t protect the confidentiality of the people who complained," Reback said, “but also because they seem to take directions from Google.”

"who say Google gives priority to its own services on the Android platform" - isn't that the same across other OS. MS still has around 90% desktop share and don't they prioritize over IE and Bing search.

> In the last two years, the FTC has shown it will pursue big technology companies in consumer-fraud cases. It has accused Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. of wrongly billing consumers for unauthorized purchases made by children on mobile applications. Google and Apple settled the FTC complaint and agreed to refund money to consumers. Amazon said it would fight the lawsuit.

That's a pathetic track record. Corporations have done crimes equivalent to mass murder and the "biggest case" the ftc has taken on is refunding a fucking app store purchase that was probably my fault for not keeping an eye on my kid? I almost hope amazon wins.

Must be because Europe can't compete with American tech companies.

> The Federal Trade Commission reached an agreement with the Justice Department to spearhead an investigation of Google’s Android business, the people said. FTC officials have met with technology company representatives who say Google gives priority to its own services on the Android platform, while restricting others, added the people, who asked for anonymity because the matter is confidential.

So we are going after the most open platform for which switching any part of the system is going to the playstore/F-Droid instead of the apple shaped elephant in the room.

And Apple is the biggest single vendor of smartphones in US ... go figure.

Here we go again. A group of smaller companies that can't compete on their own merits point the hapless FTC in the direction of the most successful company, paint them as a monopolist, and sit back and watch the fun. Sales of popcorn must be soaring.

The notion that "bundling" is anti-competitive is so 1995. No one in the real world minds bundling, no one is hurt by it, and everyone would be inconvenienced by some kind of unbundling solution to satisfy the 10 people in the world who oppose Google's right to package its services together.

There are real and egregious abusers of the system--bribing federal judges, giving kickbacks to food inspectors, paying off legislators and Congressional staffers to slant the laws and regulations in favor of a particular supplier--and these do hurt honest competitors and cause us all to pay more for goods and services.

But to go after a large company merely because it's large and influential and highly successful... These regulators are simply out of control.