I never understood the antitrust angle towards Google search. Is there some kind of browser or app out there that is forcing people to use Google as their search engine on all their devices?
> At issue is whether the company uses its position as the dominant search engine company to muscle out competition from specialized search services, specifically comparison shopping sites, by prioritizing its own Google Shopping search results.
Where are you getting that the 'antitrust angle towards Google search' is a subject of the complaint?
And it is pretty weird. It's really not very analogous to the old Microsoft/IE cases.
(Edit: Obviously, it's an EU case, brought under different laws entirely. There's no particular reason it would or should be analogous, but it does look very odd to US eyes, just because the legal principles are so different.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law
Such laws seek to "promote and maintain fair competition"
Anti-trust law in the US does not exist to promote competition.
Monopolies are not illegal in the US. The violation of anti-trust law generally occurs when the government 'proves' harm to consumers. It's an almost entirely arbitrary decision on the part of the government as to whether they pursue a company on anti-trust grounds.
Intel maintained a near monopoly in personal computer processors for a long time. They were allowed to keep that position, despite the lack of serious competition beyond AMD's small slice of the market. Cisco, eBay, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have also been allowed to keep their overwhelmingly dominate positions over the years. Why? Because anti-trust has nothing to do with promoting competition.
Antitrust law is not about being "forced"...
The issue isn't "everyone is forced to use Google Search" as much as "Google creates a monopoly through connected use of it's various products and services".
No, they don't. You're free to use any browser on your desktop. You're free to use any browser on your Android device. And you're free to go into Chrome settings and use any search engine in Chrome on any of these devices.
Defaults are powerful things, as so very few take the time to change them.
Damn it, since Firefox canceled their deal with Google the latter has taken to pitching Chrome whenever a Firefox user visits Google.com.
If you believe statcounter, Firefox is actually really really close to overtaking IE http://gs.statcounter.com/
[1] http://www.androidcentral.com/how-change-your-default-search...
Plus, Microsoft's problems were tied to Windows with IE. It appears this is just about Search results and/or Chrome, as they outline Android specifically as something they are now investigating.
Its not irrelevant; there is clearly a stronger case for anticompetitive behavior if you include an app as default with an OS and prevent alternatives than you if you provide a default but allow alternatives.
OTOH, merely allowing alternatives may not be sufficient, depending on other circumstances, to not run afoul of competition laws in some jurisdictions.
The whole hoopla about browser choice in Windows was for much the same, as Microsoft used their OS market position to push Internet Explorer, that in turn pushed IIS.
Frankly the browser war was a proxy for intranet server competition. Netscape was trying to use internet tech to go after corporate networks, and MS was trying to cut them off at the pass.
You don't need to be a monopoly to get slapped with antitrust. All that is needed is for you to be the big dog of the pack, and seen as abusing that position.
Imagine that you search for "orlando new york flight" and the first result is rigged to be Google Flight Search. Or you look for "cloud database" and Google Cloud SQL is first.
Google is trying to get into a lot of markets, and its dominance in search could give its many other ventures an advantage.
And wouldn't this all be an issue for a company like Amazon as well? They are a marketplace, yet they also make tablets, e-readers, have a video-streaming service. Aren't they using their position as a online retailer to push their products in other markets over other company's products?
It most certainly could affect Amazon. And I would be okay with that.
Such as the fact that you can easily use something other than Chrome and Google search on any of devices? I mean, the position is starting to sound like "anti-trust" really means "The government taxes companies who hold a dominant position in the marketplace."
Edit: I can't reply to this thread anymore, so I'll just expand a bit here.
I get that on some level, all regulation/etc is some form of tax. I guess my point is that what constitutes 'anti-trust' is too unclear. It sounds a lot like governments just arbitrarily decide that its time for a certain company to give them money, without adequate justification.
Anti-trust is overtly about government placing additional restrictions (which, as they have costs, can be viewed as a kind of taxes) on companies with market power so as to limit the degree to which that market power accelerates within its core market and spreads to other markets denying effective choice.
So, you haven't really discovered anything that isn't exactly the overt point of antitrust law.
From the anti-trust cases I've seen, the existence of viable (in the sense of accessible and sufficient, I think) alternatives is usually one of the market realities taken into consideration. If it is trivially easy not to use Google.com or Chrome, then Google's position is solidified by consumer choice rather than anti-competitive behavior.
In a sense it can be likened to the drug dealer classic "the first dose is free".
There is also Ara. While one the surface it seems to break down the old consumer facing problems with mobile devices, there is no indication that Google will give up control over the endoskeletons that the modules attach to. Heck, they may set themselves up as sole distributor of modules. Even go as far as tracking modules, under the guise of disabling them if stolen.
And yes, Ara was an awesome Motorola project that Google will now ruin with walled garden design. The endoskeleton is not intended to be third party-able.
These charges aren't related to Android, so where is Google 'mandating' Chrome be used?
I'm not convinced that's an issue. A user has to specifically choose to down the Chrome browser for free. At which point it defaults to Google search, and you can trivially change it to use another search engine. The "issue" sounds really thin to me.
Their charges against Android are coming soon, they've launched an official investigation into Android app bundling as well.
So, what relevance does that have here then?
The majority of Web users on the most used browser (IE) manually chose to use Google.
I don't think Google should be allowed to dictate clauses like this one from their developer agreement:
4.5 Non-Compete.
You may not use the Market to distribute or make available any
Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution
of software applications and games for use on Android devices
outside of the Market.
Although that probably isn't very relevant to this case....