It seems to be a rehash of the issue that Microsoft faced when it only gave you Internet Explorer on install. But iOS comes with only Safari on install, and forces you to use Apple's various apps - how is this any different?
> The European Commission has accused Google of abusing its Android market dominance by bundling its search engine and Chrome apps into the operating system. Google has also allegedly blocked phone makers from creating devices that run forked versions of Android.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/18/17580694/google-android-e...
> How is it any different
Apple doesn’t have a dominent search engine to push down the throat of device makers.
They also don’t have an iOS consortium nor do work with other makers, so there is no bullying makers into doing what they want “or else”.
As others pointed out Apple is not in a majority position in the first place, but this fine is mainly bound to how the search engine and google suitr services come in the picture, and not on android on its own.
Firstly, Android doesn't have a monopoly. Apple does fine in Europe and their devices can be bought everywhere.
Secondly, there are device makers that didn't cut a deal with Google, notably the Amazon phones and tablets. They weren't that popular with consumers but that's not Google's fault: it just means consumers highly value the additional services Google provides.
It's not hard to become a phone maker these days, judging by the sheer number of Android OEMs that are out there (hundreds, I believe). If there was huge untapped demand for Android sans Google then a new company would appear, they'd download the Android code, they'd go to Shenzen and do a deal with a white label manufacturer, and they'd make such phones. Google wouldn't stop them because they'd be a company that doesn't make any other kinds of phones.
We know this is possible because there's one huge market where that's normal, China. Google's services are blocked in China anyway, so there's no point adding their app store or mapping apps. Local firms produce local versions of Android for their own market and it works fine. We also know this because Amazon tried it and they weren't sued or anything.
There are also open source spins of Android that have custom app stores like F-Droid. A new phone maker could ship those too.
In general, when you see an example that explains a complex issue you should assume that it is significantly simplified and therefore will not be realistic.
It's very normal that a company B would want to go to company A, if A already have a lot of expertise in Android. For instance a POS manufacturer might want to collaborate with Sony or Samsung on an embedded device which uses Android internally (without the GApps & stuff), but Sony and Samsung are forbidden from dealing with B.
Even Amazon would be happy to outsource some Android development to e.g. Samsung but they can't.
However, Sailfish is available only as a post market firmware.
Being a derivative work of AOSP courtesy of libhybris, it would seem Sony are prevented from factory installing Sailfish on any future Xperia device.
No it isn't. But your attempt at refutation is.
> Android doesn't have a monopoly. Apple does fine in Europe
Apple has its segment. Android is pretty much everything else. It is "dominant" in the market.
> Secondly, there are device makers that didn't cut a deal with Google
The complaint relates specifically to access to google play services.
Now go look at who are making phones on this base: Samsung is the most popular but it doesn't have a monopoly.
Is the EU going to fine ARM next for having a monopoly on mobile CPUs?
Maybe? Is there something about their business practices that shapes the market to their benefit? If so, and there are enough complaints then maybe not "next" but yeah.
Have ARM used their dominant position in one market to reduce competition in a different market?
Having a monopoly or being in a dominant position is not the problem. If ARM starts a pizza business and requires everyone who wants to buy mobile CPUs to also order pizzas exclusively from them, then this would be an equally-fineable abuse of a dominant market position and the EU would almost certainly step in.
As it stands, ARM doesn’t force others to buy pizzas exclusively from ARM PIZZA PLACE and hence doesn’t abuse its dominant market position in one market (mobile CPUs) to support its position in another market (pizzas).
Google, on the other hand, uses its dominant position in the "licensable mobile operating systems" market to support its position in the "internet search" and "browsers" market together with anticompetitive behaviour forcing its licensees to exclusively use the Google-approved version of Android.
Most phone makers don't because customers prefer the Google services, but that's not Google's fault. They have provided OEMs with options - options they didn't need to give anyone, apparently, given that non-licensable operating systems like iOS aren't being whacked the same way.
The most Google can do is give away their OS as open source and let people do what they want with it. If they then sell a bundle of extra proprietary stuff on top, stuff that customers want, that can't possibly be more problematic than making everything proprietary.
After all, Apple doesn't even let third party devs from the app store take over the default mapping app: map links always open in Apple Maps regardless of user preference. For the longest time they wouldn't even let apps that competed with their own be developed at all. On Android you can replace the dialer and even the home screen.
I do understand why people are defending the EU here: they like its ideology and vision of the future. But trying to claim Android is some sort of market abuse when Apple's own approach apparently isn't just defies basic logic.
- by preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code;
- by giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
a) Android has market share dominances (likely around 75% in Europe in 2018)
b) iOS is not made available for other companies to use
You could make arguments that iOS behaves unfairly to third party developers and end users, and there are some decent arguments to be made there, but none of them are relevant to antitrust law because a) means there is no market dominance to abuse with, and b) means there are no competitors to be abused.
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You said "Most phone makers don't [skip Google services] because customers prefer the Google services, but that's not Google's fault". I think this gets to the heart of the disconnect between your stated position, and the legal reality here (IANAL though).
If Google's services are supreme because of user choice, then Google should require no legal arm-twisting to push those services onto devices.
Instead, what has happened is that Google has over-reached with its Android services contracts (one example - if you want to use Google services on one Android phone, you can't make a second Android phone that uses your own services), and that is what the EU is tackling here.
The different stories people are telling here about why Google is "abusive" don't correlate with the realities of how Android licensing actually works.
Also since when is 75% market dominance? 75% is popular but that's still a quarter of the population successfully choosing an alternative.
Regarding the 75%, please bear in mind that that is across the total market, which covers a very broad range of price points. Apple may have ~25% share, but that is skewed almost entirely to the top end of the market. In the low end of the market, Android would be nearly 100%.
Does anyone know what the contracts contain?
They're using a dominant position in one market to push services in an unrelated market. That's anti-trust 101. And they punish suppliers who don't tow the line.
This is exactly the same as the MS anti-trust case. Swap IE for Google Web Services (Search/Maps/Chrome) and swap Android for Windows.
If ARM started forcing phone companies using their CPUs to only sell to AT&T, that's your analogy. As it is, because ARM don't force unrelated services or products on their customers, it's not analogous.
Note that for the purposes of this ruling, the relevant dominant position isn't in Android, but the Google Play Store.
ARM do not sell any CPUs. the CPUs in mobile phones come from Qualcomm, Samsung, Apple, etc.
For context they also push Google search to iOS devices (Apple gets huge amount of money for that), the same way as they pay firefox to have Google as their default search engine.
The issue though, is that for android phones, it's not a "let's make a deal, we will pay you to have Google Search" attitude. You can't make an android device integrated with Google Play app store without also having Google Search in the home screen and as default search engine.
What the EU is fining among others, is the business practice of forcing device makers that want to use the Play Store to also bundle the other service (Search).
(I guess you could say that didn't see this coming, but the parallels with MSFT and IE are pretty hard to not see...)
The fine is going to hurt a lot more than any remedial action.
As an independen device maker, you wouldn't be able to put iOS on your devices. Android has a huge margin over other viable alternatives.
They also have the option to write their own OS anytime they want.
The EU commission doesn't think so. Their press release* says that 80% of smart mobile devices in Europe, run on Android.
Basically, all you have to do, is hurt the market in noticeable ways. The sole goal of antitrust laws is keeping the market healthy. They're not fair and have almost no rules attached to them.
It does have a dominant market position though, and that's what's in the legal stuff that they're being fined under. You do not need a complete monopoly to have a dominant market position.
> Secondly, there are device makers that didn't cut a deal with Google, notably the Amazon phones and tablets. They weren't that popular with consumers but that's not Google's fault: it just means consumers highly value the additional services Google provides.
More than that though, they effectively stopped device manufactures from selling these (because of exclusivity agreements), and a lack of range isn't going to have helped amazon:
> For example, the Commission has found evidence that Google's conduct prevented a number of large manufacturers from developing and selling devices based on Amazon's Android fork called "Fire OS".
Android being an open source OS is nowhere near as easy to install as a regular linux open source OS.
I've been trying to get my own android / androidTV box working on popular hardware like rPi and other Amlogic, Allwinner, Mali based boards without much success. Even devices manufacturers have troubles with the same (talking about SBCs here).
Android is open source only for name sake. Google's deliberate control over the entire Android ecosystem is undeniable.
In order for device manufacturers to get the Play Store on their phone, they have to give in to Google's demands to add the Google search box on the home screen of the phones.
Apart from this, Qualcomm doesn't release open source drivers for GPUs etc, making it even harder to use pure AOSP on flagship devices.
What's wrong with this? The Play Store is subsidized by search revenue, it makes sense to tie them together.
There's a bunch of SBC manufacturers (pine64, odroid, orangepi, etc) worldwide that have managed to compile AOSP for questionable hardware. However, it is noteworthy that almost none have been able to compile images for Android 7.1 and above that work without hiccups.
As for your problems installing it on other boards, where are the drivers for them? Your classic desktop installation comes with drivers for almost every laptop/desktop board. Android doesn't because the vendors don't contribute. A snapdragon SoC requires a binary blob from Qualcomm. There is nothing you can do without it. It has nothing to do with AOSP being opensource or Google controlling it (Google controls other aspects, AKA the Play Services).
Trying to get the xda builds and LinageOS working properly is subjectively speak—difficult and heavily device dependent.
I’m not sure about x86 images, but arm are heavily device dependent.
Would love be proved wrong. I’m looking for android images actively.
Oh, Google, you're willing to share almost everything with anyone for free, but you want to put terms on that? Hey, here's a giant fine.
I just don't understand the logic of this at all.
The EU laws around this are also worded as such. You can do anti-competitive behavior all you want if you're not a major player because you'll just be shooting yourself in the foot.
Google knows that most manufacturer needs their devices to ship with the Play Store, because that's where the apps are and smartphone without apps are useless. But they use the Play Store as leverage, forcing manufactures to also ship Chrome, rather than Opera, Firefox or their own browser and that's the bit that is illegal.
Imagine that Apple forced telcos to block Spotify, to force users to iTunes, and if they didn't then no iPhones on that carriers network.
That being said I don't think Google is using the Play Store to force installations of Chrome or the Google search app, that's just weird. People would install Chrome anyway and they already dominate search, so why bother. I think the reason is technical, but the end result is still illegal.
Honestly your comment is pretty much kindergarten level argumentation, so I think that maybe you should just take your ball and go home.
The question was regarding to the logic behind why Google is getting fined, while Apple is not, and I think I answered that question pretty well.
If you sort public companies by Market Capitalization, how far down the list do you think you need to go, before you find a company that is only in one market?
Google is forcing installations on Samsung phones, LG phones, etc through their contract.
It is entirely possible what Apple is doing would be illegal IF they licensed/sold the OS to other OEMs.
This is so back-asswards.
This is not an open/closed dichotomy. This is a free/controlled market issue.
If Google manufactured all Android phones, and Android were closed source, and Android came pre-installed with the Play Store, Search, and Chrome, I think it wouldn't be a problem, right?
That turns this into an open/closed dichotomy.
It's plausible that Android would have nearly as many users.
Google, for instance, could have all of the current manufacturers agree to OEM their Android devices. Possibly with co-branding.
That’s what they’re doing here, just like MS did in the 90s with Windows licenses.
Recently KaiOS was gaining traction and what did google? Virtually bought their presence/dominance there… sorry "supported project".
Android’s rise to dominance was mostly because of partners like Samsung.
Personal preference but Samsung phones are the only ones which I see are comparable to latest iPhones in terms of speed, features and price.
With co-branding?
And all of the profits going to Samsung?
This would merely be a different way to structure access to Android, right? Android is closed source, but literally everything else is the same...
Except now it's not "anti-competitive," because the phone manufacturers are not "competitors" to Google.
The same goes for Samsung and its own browser, simply called "Internet": people often have heard of Google Chrome but won't go looking if there's a working "internet button" right in front of them. Other vendors use the same trick.
Personally, I would think this is a good thing as it takes away some of the monopoly Google has, if Samsung etc. would just give their browsers regular updates through the Play Store/their own app store (latest version I can find on the Play Store still uses Chrome 59).
There is no technical reason to install the Google app or to install Chrome. Vendors can easily install their own WebKit/Blink engines for all the WebView/technical requirements (as seen by alternative ROMs) and the Google app can be deleted without affecting the other Play Services.
I think this is a ploy to prevent companies like Microsoft from coming with their own ROMs that focuses on Microsoft applications (Cortana, Bing, Edge mobile, Outlook, Microsoft Office etc., MS have a near complete stack of applications for Android) without offering any pre-installed competition like Google does.
Which only serves as strengthening Chrome's position (Chrome being a I/O vector for Google's ad market).
> and they already dominate search, so why bother.
Which obliterates any chance of a remotely widespread alternative emerging. The homescreen search bar is technically a widget like any other yet it is the only one that cannot even be removed from any stock launcher!
Imagine a manufacturer whose part of its proposition (whether through deals or genuine customer interest) is for whatever reason to sell a phone that comes loaded up with Firefox (or Opera) and has Bing (or DuckDuckGo, or Qwant) as a search widget. This is currently impossible and the decision aims to change that. The fact that Google uses its Android - because there is no viable alternative platform - and Play Store - because without the apps the platform is useless to the general public - dominance in the phone market to strong-arm manufacturers into preloading extensions of its search and ad market is a huge issue, turning the "Google experience" on Android into an all-or-nothing proposition.
But there is a related yet more subtle issue that isn't addressed: log into the Play Store, and you're helpfully logged into all other Google services such as Gmail, Chrome, Calendar, Photos... The only thing you can subsequently prevent is automatic syncing, but cannot disable each one of those services at all (unless you disable the whole app). So basically you log in to download whatever app on the Play Store and you turn on a huge firehose aimed at Google's datacenters. As an Android user the feeling I have of the "Google experience" is one of coercion, not freedom.
BTW your iTunes/Apple Music example is interesting, although it could be developed further to better match the situation.
Of course once you have the device you can do whatever you ... can. Similarly once you have your Android phone you can install an alternative browser.
In fact I have had Samsung phones with two app stores and two browsers. Guess which one was was I unable to delete without rooting the phone first?
I am not a fan of whataboutism, but in this case it just seems unfair that the creator of a (more) open ecosystem is taking all the beating.
Note: I actually hate the search widget as well as the assistant, but there are hundreds of alternative home screen apps.
Doesn't Apple already do this with the App Store? You can't buy an iPhone with Spotify pre-installed and Apple Music can leverage its position of not having to give another company a 30% cut to undercut spotify's prices.
That doesn't mean it is wrong. =)
The problem here is that Google allegedly dictated terms that gave them an unfair advantage in an unrelated market, breaching EU antitrust law.
A stricter antitrust law might have prevented them from gaining such a dominant position in the first place, but that doesn't seem to be the issue here.
IF Google had manufactured all of the phones themselves, and had never open sourced Android, then they could have kept Chrome and Search on Android, and there would have been no problem, right?
But because Google let other people manufacture Androids, and because Google open sourced Android, now it's a problem?
The logic of this is just baffling to me.
And secondly, they're not being punished for having an open source operating system. They're being punished for forcing manufacturers to install their suite of software (simplified). It's not because they open sourced Android. I repeat, it's NOT BECAUSE THEY OPEN SOURCED ANDROID.
As I posted elsewhere:
Couldn't Google have had Samsung OEM phones?
With co-branding?
And all of the profits going to Samsung?
This would merely be a different way to structure access to Android, right? Android is closed source, but literally everything else is the same...
Except now it's not "anti-competitive," because the phone manufacturers are not "competitors" to Google.
If
1. Android still reached 80% of market 2. Terms of OEM prohibited Samsung from making phones with another OS
That would be the same anticompetitive violation
The terms would say that Samsung installs the version of Android 2 (the new and closed source one) that Google tells it to. As manufacturing partners are always told what to do.
That's the issue though. It seems that Google is being punished for being somewhat willing to work with other makers.
Google is exactly in the same position as Microsoft when they were caught red handed doing shitty stuff with the vendors.
The interesting part is both Microsoft and Google prioritized licensing/delivering the OS and associated software, keeping a healthy distance from building hardware. Google tried a bit more with the Nexus/Pixel programs, but even then the target was only for small scale niche devices.
What I am driving at is that once android got traction, Google’s position went way up while vendor’s bargaining power went down, even as vendors where the ones taking the risks down the line. That kind of unbalance makes it easier to have abusive contracts and business practices.
It starts with good intentions (working symbiothically with the makers at innovative products) but things change, and with success I’d guess different kind of people also come into the organization to push more aggressive practices.
Apple has a monopoly on A9, A10, and A11 based computers.
No, it had a monopoly on IBM-Compatible computers, which is a category that includes multiple OEMs that sell compatible machines.
Apple doesn't have a monopoly on any market category where more than 1 player (Apple) is involved.
quote: "The District Court determined that Microsoft had maintained a monopoly in the market for Intel compatible PC operating system"
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/253...
Apple has no monopoly on any hardware market where they are not the only one. They cannot dictate terms to any other OEM manufacturing A10-compatible computers.
In their Statement of Objections, the European Commission accused Google of the breach of EU antitrust rules in three ways:
- by requiring mobile manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to license certain Google proprietary apps;
- by preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code;
- by giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
Not sure if the same licensing also applies to Google Play Services - if yes, this might make it difficult to even run the apps without getting the license, no matter which store is used.
The Play store is the crown jewel and protecting that massive revenue stream is paramount, it could well become the most important software market in the world.
-Developers -Customers -To be able to survive on fees less than it costs for a credit card transaction -To be installed on something better than Android
And you call all this easy? ;-)
Once that happens, copy cats will pay manufacturers to preinstall, leading to customers, leading to developers who want to tap that still uncrowded market. And once multiple app stores bootstrap, a price war is inevitable - margins of 30% would be undefendable since they would be passed on to the consumer who would switch to a cheaper app store.
It's very clear why Google would want to prevent such a race.
Google Play links on websites are not the problem because on Adroid an app can use App Links [1] to start an alternative store instead of opening a Play Store page in a browser.
[1] https://medium.com/@ageitgey/everything-you-need-to-know-abo...
1. They should release a heavily locked-down version of Android, which manufacturers and carriers cannot modify - apart from basics like bundled apps, widgets and wallpapers (uninstallable). Update would come direct from Google, and hardware support would be limited to specific components.
2. Make all of Android closed source and shut down AOSP. What is the point of it anyway?
This would solve the fragmentation problem, and be better for consumers since they would get updates quicker and for a longer time. Paradoxically it would lead to less 'choice' for consumers.
The fact is that Apple controls enough of the users that everybody wants that they have at least as much influence as Google does in mobile. That they've chosen to protect their fat profit margins and accumulate the largest pile of corporate cash in history while ignoring customers that can't afford premium devices should not insulate them from similar scrutiny.
If the EU wants to preserve any credibility on these issues they should take a hard look at Apple's refusal to allow other browser engines on iOS.
It's the other way around. EU is building credibility that seems to be lacking elsewhere by penalizing anti-competitive behavior.
>requiring mobile manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to license certain Google proprietary apps;
>preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code;
>giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
Apple currently pulls in an astonishing 87% of mobile profits. Why on earth should they be excluded from anti-trust scrutiny?
https://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/apple-rakes-...
Take Safari as a case in point. Apple doesn't allow other browsers on their platform which means webdevs have been limited to the parts of the web stack that Apple supports. Which, until recently, was falling pretty far behind the state of the art.
Apple might be breaking other laws, but not this one. Google is breaking this law. Hence the fine.
Apple is incapable of abusing manufacturers as Apple does not work with manufacturers at all. The entire discussion simply does not apply to Apple.
Google monopoly has very little to do with Chrome bundling and a lot with hardware being kept tight closed to kill any competition: the day we have OSS drivers is the day we can have other OSes (which have been already written) fully working; that will allow also software to be fully usable, creating more competition Google will have to respond to, hopefully with more openness and quality.
Before someone replies that drivers have nothing to do with browser bundling, think about how could Google force you to install anything or use any of their services if your underlying OS and surrounding environment didn't depend on anything from them because it wasn't even Android. Example: https://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/
The fact those parts are closed hasn't stopped people releasing custom ROMs. Google and Sony even help you do this.
https://developers.google.com/android/drivers https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/
Microsoft got into trouble because they forced companies like Dell and HP to make their products feature Internet Explorer.
Google is getting into trouble now because they're forcing companies like Samsung and LG to make their products feature Chrome.
Apple is not getting into trouble now because Apple is not forcing Apple to make their products feature Safari. Obviously iOS does feature Safari, but Apple was free to make that choice. There is no OEM here being bullied.
Right, only the end users are harmed, as it should be.
Apple does not have a dominant market position and does not give away iOS for free.
Making Android free is an anti-competitive practice because it inhibits the formation of a competitive market for mobile phone operating systems. Because Google's practice of making Android free inhibits competition they are not allowed to exploit the lack of competition for profit.
Where is the problem with making Android free?
It gets much worse depending on the country:
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1492_en.htm (fifth paragraph)
But for this case, they are using a definition that makes Android even more dominant: they allege that Google restricts device manufacturers' freedoms. And from a device manufacturer point of view, Android has a 90+% market share of "licensable smart mobile operating systems", with "licensable" being key: as a device manufacturer, you cannot use iOS, so that doesn't count if you buy into this line of argument:
In particular, the EU alleges that if you want to install Google Play on your phones, you need to sign a license agreement which also forces you to: a) install Google Chrome; b) make Google Search the default search engine; and c) not sell phones with Android forks at the same time ("Anti-Fragmentation Agreement").
They want to force Google to allow manufacturers to more freely chose which apps to pre-install and also to be able to offer Android forks in parallel to "Google-finish" Android.
I'm not sure if this will really be good for consumers... I would argue that most smartphones have too much crapware on them, not too little. On the other hand, the Microsoft Internet Explorer unbundling case arguably helped fuel the success of Firefox in breaking the IE dominance, which I would argue was good for consumers.
These alternatives mostly suck but "your competitors suck" is not grounds for an anti-trust violation. No phone vendor is forced to deal with Google, that's an absurd distortion of the facts. Even if they feel their own in-house engineering abilities are so weak they can't make a better platform than Android, they can still take the open source code and use it as a base, providing their own mapping and app store along the way ... just like Apple do.
* Symbian
* Palm webOS
* Mozilla (I think that was also called WebOS?)
* Jola
* Some blackberry thing based on QNX that "supported" Android apps
* Tizan
* Windows Phone
* Ubuntu PhoneThese days it feels like most people have given up trying to compete against Apple and Google.
Interesting to note that a quick look on the Firefox OS Wikipedia article has highlighted a bunch of other mobile platforms I'd forgotten.
The up and comer is KaiOS, used on super low-end phones in India. Its a version of the Firefox OS.
[1]: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-king...
[2]: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/liechtenste...
[3]: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/monaco
Using your reasoning, Microsoft could never have had a monopoly on Windows because you always could have bought a Mac.
You can't define a monopoly as "your competitors aren't popular" because otherwise it'd be illegal to invent new product categories, as at the start you'd be the only player in the new space. You can't define it that way for another reason: it punishes success.
As the sibling comment rightly says, monopolies are acceptable. But, as the EU clearly point out, a greater onus is put on monopolies to avoid abusing their monopoly power.
The profit isn't from the direct sale of an Android device, it's from the system the device is a gateway to.
Like, own all cinemas in a country but home-viewing keeps profit low, so now it's fine to only allow people to visit your cinemas if they buy clothes from your clothing company?
Edit:perfect->problem
There are.other mobile OSes available as well. I'm sure Microsoft will gladly let you use their OS for the right price, KaiOS, Ubuntu phone OS could be resurrected, you could role your own, I'm sure Symbian is for sale somewhere, how about Meego.
If you want to have Google apps on your phone you can't sell any forked android version.
> Nevertheless, the Commission investigated to what extent competition for end users (downstream), in particular between Apple and Android devices, could indirectly constrain Google's market power for the licensing of Android to device manufacturers (upstream). The Commission found that this competition does not sufficiently constrain Google upstream for a number of reasons, including:
They are not punished for their behavior in the downstream market (in which they barely participate). They are punished for their behavior in the upstream market. We consumers do not participate in the upstream market.
Nevertheless, the EU commission considered whether the lack of a monopoly in the downstream market ameliorated the monopoly effects in the upstream market and found it did not.
- has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google's app store (the Play Store);
- made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app on their devices; and
- has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks").
> Market dominance is, as such, not illegal under EU antitrust rules. However, dominant companies have a special responsibility not to abuse their powerful market position by restricting competition, either in the market where they are dominant or in separate markets.
> Google has engaged in three separate types of practices, which all had the aim of cementing Google's dominant position in general internet search.
If you don’t have a monopoly and do things your partners/competitors don’t like, they can’t complain that you are abusing a dominant market position to get away with it.
There’s nothing wrong with bundling. But when you have a monopoly on the market bundling suddenly is wrong and abusive even if it’s the right thing for your end users.
So we see time and again monopolies are knee-capped in the market and face these absurd fines, in the name of fairness and competition.
I have no doubt that some monopolies leverage their market dominance for some pretty atrocious dealings. I personally see nothing wrong with Google licensing the optional (but extremely popular) Google Play services such that it requires Google Search and Chrome along with it.
If they were unrelated then the experience of Google Play Services would be identical with or without the other pieces (Chrome and Search). I don’t use Android so I can’t say for sure, but I’m quite confident that the overall experience suffers without all three pieces together.
The EU text talks about requiring chrome and search if the play store is installed. As a user of android, I cannot think of any way in which these are linked. I don't see why the play store wouldn't work without those two, or would even lose a single feature.
I suggest reading this:
This is the most clearly anti-competitive practice.
Google supports AOSP and has done so for years, making it available freely. Why shouldn't they be able to dictate their own terms? If phone makers don't like it, they can make their own OS (which they have - and they all suck).
> Google has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks").
Hence the fine.
You cannot have something open and control it at the same time.
It's not. Be Patient.