Google Shuts Out Competitors on Android? Hardly | Hacker News Reader

Google Shuts Out Competitors on Android? Hardly

nytimes.com

45 pointspanarky50 comments

An alternate point of view by the Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21697193-european-com...

Tl;dr: Android is open sourced, Google Play services are not. Licenses for manufacturers to preinstall the proprietary Google Play app require them to also to preinstall Google search.

Android manufacturers aren't forced to preinstall Play services. Users can still uninstall either Play, search, or any number of the preinstalled manufacturer apps (which aren't locked by manufacturers), right? How is this different than if Google made just one app for play and search?

In tightly controlled ecosystems the default state is effectively what most consumers will keep and use. This is sometimes informally called the power of default. Entire billion dollar markets can rise and fall based on something as simple as an opt-out versus opt-in policy. It's a little like that Supreme Court ruling that said ''the power to tax is the power to destroy''. The power of default is not much different especially when you control the entire underlying OS. Anti-trust regulators are right to focus on what these default settings are.

So is Apple preinstalling iTunes as the default music service antitrust too?

It could be if iOS or OSX dominated the market share, but I don't think that's the case right now.

If Apple had vast majority of market share, pre-installed iTunes, integrated iTunes functionality throughout the OS so that it had more intuitive prominence than other competing services, then yes, that would be close to the definition of antitrust as I understand it (using dominant control in one market to create or maintain dominant control in a second market). This is what Microsoft was penalized for, appropriately, with Windows and the browser market.

Got it - that makes much more sense.

The legal question is whether the exclusivity terms in the licensing deals are anti-competitive given Google's dominant market share in Europe.

"handset-makers that wish to pre-install Google Play must, among other apps, also add Google Search and make it the device’s default search service; if they want to share in Google’s ad revenues they have to exclusively pre-install Google Search; and if they pre-install Google’s apps on any of their models, they must commit to install only Google’s standard version of Android on each and every one of their models."

That's a quality control clause to keep manufacturers from pushing apps that don't work to users. The Google play apps are not compiled to run on every conceivable custom configuration of open-sourced Android. Samsung installs Tizen on it's models that don't use play services.

If I understand "if they pre-install Google’s apps on any of their models, they must commit to install only Google’s standard version of Android on each and every one of their models" correctly, Google does not allow handset-makers to sell models with custom Android versions (but without Google Play) if that maker also wants to sell any model with an approved Android version and Google Play.

Tizen is not an Android derivative. Do you know enough about Google's licensing terms to be able to contradict the accusation in the article?

Btw, I entirely understand and sympathize with the desire to prevent Android fragmentation.

Yeah, I wasn't aware of restricting the specific forks. I'm not sure how that works if you open source software but then license someone to only use a specific version.

This whole anti-trust case seems to be for the benefit of certain businesses (Microsoft, Yandex, etc) and not consumers.

actually it's the EU. What happens in the EU is never good for consumers and never was. Actually most people that 'control' the EU are politicans that aren't needed / wanted in their foreign country. Consider 'Günther Hermann Oettinger', he is the European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. Actually it's really hard to take this guy serious. Just listen at his early talks at the EU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ2Pz4naZPs Horrible.. Really. Also he was the one who was for the right to be forgotten, but still only in Google (tm). The information is still their, it's just harder to find it. Actually the EU is the worst thing that could happen to the European Countries since the WWII.

It's gone in the wrong direction.

Not going to even bother dissecting this argument. Living in the UK at the moment we see so much of this Britexit type hyperbole (without any real thought or planning for the future):

"Actually the EU is the worst thing that could happen to the European Countries since the WWII"

Really? How about invasion through the Fulda Gap by the USSR? Or communism spreading and taking hold of more of Europe? Or the food supply failing leading to famine? Or constant nationalism resulting in WW3? Or resurgent Nazism? or an outbreak of civil wars across the whole continent? or outbreak of disease? or nuclear terrorism? or massive levels of regular terrorism? or massive energy crisis leading to huge death tolls because of colds. I can go on...

For just one of the huge amount of positive benefits of the EU, I will leave the argument to Patrick Stewart doing a short comedy about it:

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/video/2016/apr/25/patrick...

Actually terrorism could actually be targeted against the EU. It's really hard to say if there wouldn't be any without the EU. But I really think that without opening the borders as it was done with some EU contract, it wouldn't be as worse at it is now. If these days somebody would bomb some citizens it's really hard to say from where these people would come. In most parts of the EU you could've just go in and out whenever you want without many controls. It changed lately but still a lot of people are here now which could be good or bad, we don't know, we actually don't know anything about them and they don't know anything about us. This could lead to terrorism as well. I mean if some groups can't correlate with other groups that will be troublesome. Hopefully everything goes well.

I can't reply directly to your comment on terrorism but I completely refute your argument.

As an Irish person I can tell you right now that the EU has been instrumental in helping end the conflict in Northern Ireland (and I'm sure the same in Basque areas etc also). While they didn't negotiate the actual peace agreements - the benefits that came with EU membership were vital to ensuring the Republican/Nationalist leadership came to the negotiating table.

-> increased standard of living

-> jobs

-> social protection

-> fair trials

-> rights for citizens etc etc etc

Btw. Ireland is one of the best examples why the EU doesn't work. A lot of the good parts of Ireland happened, caused by the low cut tax rates. Even german companies used some tricks until 2014/2015 to get money out of the EU by using some 'double Irish arrangement' or other stuff. Ireland is actually one of the best countries for businesses inside the EU and it can't be good that one country is better than any other country inside the EU. In a group of countries with the same exchange it should be forbidden to have different tax rates and some other specials for companies.

Also I doubt that 90% of the stuff you said would be possible just without the EU. I also thing that actually most things would actually be easier.

Actually there is way more controversial stuff inside the EU that I know of and that is publicly available. Also I live in germany and we profited the most from the things happened inside the EU, that's actually controversial as well.

>In a group of countries with the same exchange it should be forbidden to have different tax rates and some other specials for companies.

You mean like the states that share the USD, aka. the United States of America? Or like Scotland and England lately?

The Out Campaign would be the first to complain about a one size fits all tax policy for the whole of the Eurozone.

You are just absolutely wrong. And really? Worst thing? Like.....communism in Poland that nearly destroyed my country, which is now booming in EU, is somehow better? It's also nonsense that EU politicians are the ones that aren't needed in their country, our own representative, Mr. Tusk, was a great prime minister and no one wanted to see him go.

Microsoft and Google have agreed to stop going after eachother: http://recode.net/2016/04/22/microsoft-google-agree-to-stop-...

Though, Microsoft originally made their complaints against Google in the EU back in 2011: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-google-idUSTRE72...

And Obama calls the EU out as saying the EU is engaging in protectionism: http://recode.net/2015/02/17/europeans-dismiss-president-oba...

The opinions stated here are my own, not necessarily those of Google.

>And Obama calls the EU out as saying the EU is engaging in protectionism

Ironically that's not even protectionism - it's cracking down on tax evasion.

When Obama slapped a 30% tax on Chinese solar panel imports to aid the US oil/gas/utility industries - that's protectionism.

The actual reason for those subsidies is to protect the US solar panel industry. China's panels are artificially cheap because China massively subsidizes their manufacture. These are known as "countervailing duties" [1].

The likely alternative to that is allowing China's subsidized panels to undercut domestic producers, we have cheap panels until our industry goes entirely out of business, and then have prices get jacked up because the competition is gone.

EDIT: If you want to stop aiding the US oil/gas/utility industries, there are plenty of direct subsidies and tax breaks that could be removed instead of the tariffs on Chinese PV panels.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervailing_duties

No, that was the sales pitch.

US solar companies contribute very little to political campaigns. Their lobbying power is very limited.

Their influence is comparable (or less, even) to the US steel industry which has faced dumping and basically been told to go fuck themselves.

The utilities industry, on the other hand, contributes a lot of cash to political campaigns, and has already been caught trying to influence legislators in an attempt to kill domestic solar demand (lobbying vociferously through back channels to eliminate the FIT). This is exactly what they want.

That was enough to make me suspicious enough to read a large chunk of the very dull document by the US dept of state that tried to justify characterizing China's solar exports as dumping. Many of the things in the document were clutching at straws (e.g. complaining about 'free publicity' given by the local government by listing the solar companies on their website).

> Their influence is comparable (or less, even) to the US steel industry which has faced dumping and basically been told to go fuck themselves.

I don't know if there's a particular type of steel you have in mind, but cold rolled steel from China has a huge 227.29% CVD as of last December.

https://agmetalminer.com/2015/12/17/75783/

> The actual reason for those subsidies is to protect the US solar panel industry. China's panels are artificially cheap because China massively subsidizes their manufacture. These are known as "countervailing duties" [1].

> The likely alternative to that is allowing China's subsidized panels to undercut domestic producers, we have cheap panels until our industry goes entirely out of business, and then have prices get jacked up because the competition is gone.

Isn’t that what half of Silicon Valley is doing?

Let’s look at Google. Undercut competitors in niche markets, financed with Search revenue, then increase prices or kill it completely (Google Apps for Work, etc).

Let’s look at Uber. Undercut competitors financed with investment money, making losses, then increase prices.

Are you sure you are making a case pro-Google?

I wasn't making any case on Google, but since you've brought it up: no, I don't buy that argument.

Manufacturing, especially for something like photovoltaics, isn't something you can ramp back up easily. Google jacks their Apps for Work prices by 500%? Switch to Office 365, or buy a server and hire a sysadmin.

Similar for Uber. Prices go way up? Somebody else can buy a car and drive people around. Existing taxi companies can get on board with smartphone apps like Arro in NYC.

Obviously I'm oversimplifying things a bit, but these things are easier than spinning up a semiconductor factory or R&D group. Industries with higher barriers to entry (both time and cost) are more vulnerable to that kind of predatory underpricing.

> Microsoft and Google have agreed to stop going after each other: http://recode.net/2016/04/22/microsoft-google-agree-to-stop-....

It's good that they decided that the pie was big enough for both of them. Now they can concentrate on attacking startups and small businesses.

As a customer, I’m annoyed by having an un-removable Google bar in the recents menu on my Nexus device. No way to remove without modifying the OS itself (unlocking bootloader, compiling AOSP myself, flashing myself).

As a developer, I’m annoyed by being forced to use Google Cloud Messaging – even when that might make it impossible for my app to send notifications, because there is no single server sending notifications, but millions (distributed systems are like that), and therefore Google is now locking my app out from receiving notifications on Android M and N during doze. On Android M that means during the night, on Android N that means as soon as the app is in background, it can’t send notifications.

And then there’s the Anti-Fragmentation clause, that forbids OEMs from forking Android.

The Anti-Fragmentation clause – which has been used several times by Google against Kindle devices and Tizen – might in fact end up being illegal. The EC has picked the fight mostly because of this.

I hope it doesn't wind up being illegal. The android security landscape is a disaster, in part, because of fragmentation. OEMs need to stop screwing around with devices.

That’s the cost of having a choice. If there was only one car, we would have far less to worry about, too. But the laws say that a software manufacturer – Microsoft or Google – can’t coerce OEMs – be they Dell or SAMSUNG – into using their OS on all systems.

What coercion? Those developers can use AOSP and roll whatever OS suits their fancy.

They want to ship Google's code, they play by their rules. Sounds only fair.

No, they can’t.

Google prevents OEMs like SAMSUNG from shipping Kindle devices. If SAMSUNG were to ship a Kindle device, Google would immediately stop licensing them the Play Store for their other devices.

This is part of the contract between Google and OEMs, and it contains this specific limitation that an OEM can only either ship Google Play devices, or AOSP devices – but not both at the same time.

Ah! Okay, that makes a lot more sense and definitely reeks of 90's era Microsoft-tier anticompetitive behavior.

Exactly. The EU already fought it back then, so it makes sense they’ll fight it here again.

The other EU antitrust case – the one about the Google Search – also was often misrepresented, but one of the major concerns was that Google took reviews from Yelp!, displayed them in Google Maps and Google Search, did not link back to Yelp!, and when Yelp! requested Google to stop doing so, Google threatened to blacklist Yelp! from the search completely.

These cases are not just hot air, although it seems like a lot of people try to misrepresent them, be it for misguided corporate loyalty or personal incentive.

I personally hope the EU can improve the situation for us users soon.

A Kindle device from HTC would be nice, and the ability to use DuckDuckGo from the recents menu, not just the Launcher.

Being able to use non-Google push notification services would also reduce my own costs – I’m a student working on FLOSS apps – by about 15$ a month – I’d finally be able to get 3G speeds on my phone, currently I can only afford 64kbps unlimited internet.

> As a customer, I’m annoyed by having an un-removable Google bar in the recents menu on my Nexus device. No way to remove without modifying the OS itself (unlocking bootloader, compiling AOSP myself, flashing myself).

The search bar is part of the launcher and can be replaced trivially by any launcher you download from the app store. No unlocking, rooting or flashing required.

Maybe try the Nova launcher first. it's fairly popular and quite configurable.

You’re probably the 8th person telling me this.

I am not talking about the Launcher.

I am talking about THIS search bar in the RECENTS menu: http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/03/61/63551918823389/0/quick-...

It’s well documented everywhere.

I drive a Toyota but I am sick of having their Toyota branding everywhere. I have to watch that big logo on the steering wheel. Don't even talk about when I get out of the car. Its on the back, front and sides(center cap of the wheels).

Someone needs to do something about this!!! Nissan should be allowed to put their branding on my Toyota >:(

You have choices. You dont want Android then dont use it. You have Windows phone and iOS. Get those and have something to potentially whine about.

I'm curious to know what part did you change to remove the search bar? That should be a part of Google Now Launcher, which is not open sourced. Are you referring to "change to AOSP launcher"? If that's the case, I assume you can compile the apk alone and sideload the app.

You’re probably the 9th person telling me this.

I am not talking about the Launcher.

I am talking about THIS search bar in the RECENTS menu: http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2014/11/android-...

It’s well documented everywhere, and it’s part of the OS – not the Launcher – and can not be changed without recompiling SystemUI.apk

Don't forget Blackberry!

BlackBerry CEO Wants Legislators To Make Developing BlackBerry Apps Mandatory [0]

[0] http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/21/blackberry-wut/

Why is it always Google? Apple's iOS is far more locked down and I don't ever see them in the sights of anti-trust lawsuits.

Yes, it seems that Google is held to a completely different standard than their competitors.

Google open-sourced Android, and now competitors like Amazon build Fire Phones and Fire Tablets. Can you imagine the same openness from Apple or Microsoft?

Google allows alternatives to the Google Play Store like Amazon AppStore. Apple and Microsoft are locked down.

Apple won't let you create an app that competes with Apple services, but Google does. Apple and Microsoft default their maps and other apps. Microsoft defaults Bing as the search engine on mobile and desktop, and Apple requires a billion-dollar payment to default Google search on iOS.

Where is the anti-trust action against Google's competition? Think about why there might be a double standard here.

Antitrust law is concerned with anti-competitive contracts and agreements. Apple controlling what Apple ships on Apple hardware is fine. Google controlling what Samsung ships on Samsung hardware is not so fine.

The point of the article is that Samsung is free to load up its phones with dozens of apps that compete directly with Google.

Samsung can change the default search engine to Bing, they can pre-install Facebook, Whatsapp and Skype. They can make is so you can't uninstall Facebook if you don't want it.

Seems like a much more competitive market than the Apple or Microsoft mobile ecosystems.

> The point of the article is that Samsung is free to load up its phones with dozens of apps that compete directly with Google.

OEMs must give the Google apps very prominent placement, including a Google search bar on the home screen, and in many cases set them as the default. But this isn't at the heart of the objection. The strongest point is that Google forbids its licensees from shipping alternative versions of Android. This means that Samsung cannot offer consumers a choice between (say) GoogleAndroid and Cyanogen.

> Samsung can change the default search engine to Bing

Google requires OEMs to set Google as the default search engine, according to the EU complaint. I don't know if that's true; I speculate it's not true for Samsung (which has negotiating leverage) but is true for smaller OEMs.

> Seems like a much more competitive market than the Apple or Microsoft mobile ecosystems.

No way. A true competitive market would be a bunch of Apple-like firms, independently building whatever products they want. Instead we have all but a handful of OEMs beholden to Google, under contracts which oblige them to do things Google's way, and no other way ("anti-fragmentation").

The article makes a case that consumers aren't being harmed by this, because OEMs make terrible software. This may be true. But it's still anti-competitive.

I'm curious to see if the argument made in the article holds water in court. Do the examples of other services winning in messaging, music, social, & storage out weight the App Store and search dominance. Or will the case be about the limits placed on phone manufacturers, not consumers, making all of it moot.

It's not about limiting consumers actions it's about limiting consumer choice in the market place.

Related but different. The EU actually has a pretty good case tbh, though I doubt it'll lead to very much.

Google wants to have the closed control that Apple does (because they want to control the software) but wants to tout their difference in "openess" because they needed that to sell hardware (which they profoundly suck at at scale).

Now they've got better at the hardware (see, Nexus lines) they want to slowly choke off competition. This has been obvious for years but there was very little to be done about it other than companies moving away from Android (which isn't really practical short to medium term) or some kind of governmental play - which this is.

Now... will the EU win? Possibly, it's not a slam dunk, but it could lead to small - but important - changes in how Google has to play the game.

Except this isn't about consumer control. The EU anti-trust suit is based on licensing for the proprietary Google Play app, which requires Google Search to be bundled by manufacturers that want to install Play.

Android is open sourced, the Google Play services are not, and they're not required to run Android. Consumers can install/uninstall anything they want. Manufacturers can preinstall anything they want, just that if the license to preinstall the Play app they need to preinstall Search.

> Except this isn't about consumer control.

I know...? I said exactly that..?

The title reads like a cryptic crossword clue.

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