Google's Answer to EU Antitrust Complaints on Android

http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2016/04/androids-model-of-open-innovation.html

by Aissen • 10 years ago

44 63 10 years ago

googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com

buro92• 10 years ago

Uh-oh.

Google don't understand the EU if they believe that the way to fight the EU is to use a press release.

ocdtrekkie3• 10 years ago

So far, Google's way of fighting antitrust suits has been to pretty much claim that the government is wrong and then not change anything. Some countries where Google doesn't like the results of a government ruling, they've just left or closed the relevant service. Google seems to have a questionable understanding that they're supposed to comply with the law.

But I'm not sure they can afford to lose the whole EU market.

Oletros3• 10 years ago

Some countries where Google doesn't like the results of a government ruling, they've just left or closed the relevant service.

Apart of Spain with Google News, and it was a law that was criticized by everyone but the big newspapers can you give us examples of Google closing services when they "don't like the result"?

cowl• 10 years ago

Well, they are a FOR-PROFIT Company and as any such entity when the cost of doing business is greater than the Profit (direct or indirect), they need to just close that branch. You are surely referring to the tentative of several EU countries to get Google to pay newspapers while providing them with free referral links from a product that has no profit for them. The problem with EU lately is that it's trying to protect businesses instead of consumers. This antitrust review is just another case influenced by Microsoft and Russian Search engines because no user is impacted negatively by Google policies in this case.

sesutton• 10 years ago

Has anyone ever successfully fought an EU anti-trust action?

buro92• 10 years ago

Yes, many times. You can search these things: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm

If you haven't got it dismissed then the best outcome is a set of commitments whereby you promise not to do the worst of the things you were allegedly doing (without admitting that they were bad things, accepting liability, etc).

Most of the successful parties, if you go through the list quickly by filtering on antitrust and cartel, appear to be EU companies.

An interesting question would be to analyse the full list (I only looked at the first page of results) and ask: Is the EU is anti-US, or whether US companies fail to understand the EU and it's concerns? The first page of data appears to suggest that US companies perform worse than EU companies at challenging the commission.

My personal opinion is that it is the latter. The (mostly North American) Googlers I spoke to all didn't seem to understand the case the EU made about the right to privacy, nor this one either... yet European engineers seemed to qualify their statements with more understanding of the bizarre balancing acts the EU puts itself into.

ninedays• 10 years ago

Any manufacturer can then choose to load the suite of Google apps to their device and freely add other apps as well.

"Choose" is probably not the right word here.

ocdtrekkie3• 10 years ago

Exactly. If you don't sign Google's agreement and include Google's app bundle, your product fails in the market. You cannot successfully sell an Android smartphone today without Google Apps, unless you're in China where Google Apps isn't available.

yulaow• 10 years ago

To be more specific, you can't sell it even without just the google app store and be successful, except if you have already a very big ecosystem behind (like Amazon)

wstrange• 10 years ago

In other words, consumers really like Google Apps, and the alternative apps are not desirable.

What can Google do about that?

venomsnake• 10 years ago

I go to great lenghts to debloat away all of google crap from my phones.

It is perfectly functional

Zhenya• 10 years ago

Amazon would like to have a word with you.

nomercy400• 10 years ago

Google places strict rules on the phone, before you are allowed to get the license to ship the Google apps with your phone. Think of things like a locked bootloader at sale, no root at sale, but also other rules.

I can even think of legal issues that might be used by Google to not endorse a phone (violating IP patents in your phone's hardware, shipping it from an embargoed country).

And even then Google might decide your phone isn't worthy of their apps and not give you the license.

It's more that the Google Play store has such a marketshare (monopoly) that it can make or break a competitor's phone, which I think is what the EU is challenging here.

deelowe3• 10 years ago

Then the issue is the play store and not android, right? They need to stop beating around the bush if this is the case.

Zigurd3• 10 years ago

"Choose" is correct. OEMs can add their own apps. Those apps, like the Microsoft Office apps, can even be key to supporting other ecosystems. And not all of Google's apps are required to be preloaded on Google-logo devices.

The thing an OEM can't do is sell both a Google-logo device AND a device that excludes the Google ecosystem and supports a different ecosystem on the Android platform.

An OEM can, for example, sell Google logo Android devices and Windows devices and Palm OS (or what does LG call it?) devices and Tizen devices as long as they do not use Android as a basis for supporting non-Google ecosystems.

Or an OEM can choose to do anything at all they want with AOSP, including supporting a non-Google ecosystem, as Amazon does. But that means you won't see an Amazon Android with Google Play Services and Google's app suite on it.

b101010• 10 years ago

Some of the commissions objections are outlined here, does anyone have a better source?

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1492_en.htm

sonnyp• 10 years ago

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cf...

tacos• 10 years ago

There comes a time when the only competition for a massive corporation is governments. And you can't win that one (AT&T) even when you do (Microsoft).

Tread carefully Google (and Apple...)

JamesBaxter2• 10 years ago

I'm not smart enough to know whether Google is breaking antitrust rules or not but if they are I don't see how Apple aren't too.

ultramancool• 10 years ago

I think it's because things like Google Maps and Google Search are absolutely dominant in their industry and they try to use default Android apps (forced on manufacturers via the Play Store contract) to try to break into additional industries (like Google+, Photos, etc).

The idea being that forcing these additional apps, just to get Play Store is anti-competitive. I'm not sure I'd agree, but there's an argument to be had at least.

It's possible Apple could be too, but they've not used this to try to break into as many industries as Google has AFAIK.

strange_quark• 10 years ago

Apple doesn't have a dominant market position, especially in the EU.

rerixo• 10 years ago

The law which allows the EU to investigate Google’s alleged anti-competitive behaviour has the requirement of being between 2+ parties (i.e. Google and manufacturer), so that’s why Apple is exempt. I'm not sure if their dominant market share is actually a consideration, but it certainly gets the attention of the EU.

pmontra• 10 years ago

Because Apple builds its own phones and nobody else can use iOS. Google wouldn't be subject to this investigation if it didn't licence Android. If it built its own Nexus phones they would be in the same position Apple is. Instead it's in the position Microsoft was in the 90's.

JamesBaxter2• 10 years ago

So if Google were less open then they wouldn't have to deal with this?

Joky• 10 years ago

What about the aspect where Google prevents Samsung from selling any phone based on AOSP that wouldn't be Android (tm) (i.e. Google ecosystem)? Can you explain how you relate this to the Apple ecosystem?

kilotaras• 10 years ago

The main beef with Google is all or nothing for ALL phones produced by manufacturer.

If you want Google Android on one phone you can't ship another model with AOSP version.

Zigurd3• 10 years ago

There's a gray area there: While you surely will not be allowed to ship a phone with Yandex ecosystem and a phone with a Google ecosystem, you can probably get away with AOSP embedded in a washing machine or something like that. The "anti-fragmentation" agreement is enforced by Google retaining a final sign-off on the production version of products with the Google logo.

jfuhrman• 10 years ago

In order to get the Play Store, an OEM has to agree to install all the other ‘required’ Google apps including Google Voice Search, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk (now Hangouts), Google Maps and so on.
The most important clause states that "Devices may only be distributed if all Google Applications... are pre-installed on the Device." Google apps are an all-or-nothing affair. If you want Google Maps or the Play Store, you must also take things like Google+ and Google's network location provider.

simula67• 10 years ago

Google develops and distributes Android Open Source OS for free. The costs for these activities are offset by Google's revenues from the other products like Google+. This is Android's business model. Also many phones come pre-installed with many other apps. Google does not firbid this. All of this is mentioned in TFA.

deelowe3• 10 years ago

You do realize though, there's an intentional segregation there. Android is not the play store or any of those apps. Not at this point. Android is that OS itself and just the OS. If antitrust is an issue, then the case needs to be made against the distribution of apps that require licensing (google's apps and the store), not against android itself, which is fairly unrestricted.

dublinben• 10 years ago

If you read the original European Commission press release, this complaint is exactly about "google's apps and the store, not against android itself."

scholia2• 10 years ago

Android is that OS itself and just the OS.

Actually, Android is a Google trademark and you have to do what Google says if you want to use it.

Amazon uses AOSP but it can't call it Android.

This makes sense. Anyone could take AOSP and make it incompatible with Android (TM). If they could call it Android, that would mislead consumers.

The problem is that if you ship a single Android phone with Play etc, you are not allowed to ship any phones based on AOSP. In fact, Google just made Acer cancel the launch of an AOSP phone aimed at the Chinese market because it is already shipping genuine Android (TM).

This is not "fairly unrestricted" ;-)

thedevil2• 10 years ago

On the one hand, Google using it's app store advantage to strengthen search seems to me like it might be a monopoly abuse.

On the other hand, Google gave away an OS and built a whole ecosystem to protect their search (to the benefit of consumers). Consumers are actually winning from the arrangement (and aren't anti-trust laws supposed to protect consumers?). The losers are corporations that are less generous and less innovative than Google.

Since I'm a consumer, and not Yandex or Microsoft, I'm cheering for Google.

outside1234• 10 years ago

The problem with that is that it is a self perpetuating cycle and that the current situation is only better for consumers in the short run.

Google is better because they have more data from consumers, which gets them more installs, which makes them better.

It would be better in the long run for consumers if there is a real credible second source of search, since it keeps both parties honest and competing on the quality of the results -- and stuff like pushing your own sites doesn't start to creep in.

thedevil2• 10 years ago

In theory, I agree with you. Everything I know about economics and organizational behavior seems to agree with you.

But it seems that's not how it's worked out in the past ten years, and probably not how it will work out in the next ten years. Google's incredible pace of innovation has not apparently been slowed by lack of powerful competition.

sangnoir• 10 years ago

The problem with that is that it is a self perpetuating cycle and that the current situation is only better for consumers in the short run

The "short run" is typically the scope relevant to laws and regulations, for good or for bad.

cscurmudgeon• 10 years ago

Since I'm a consumer, and not Yandex or Microsoft, I'm cheering for Google.

Monopolies are only good for the consumer in the short term and good for only the monopolist in the long term.

The same situation played out a 100 years or so back with Standard Oil.

icebraining3• 10 years ago

The same situation played out a 100 years or so back with Standard Oil.

Good example. In 1904, Standard Oil controlled 85%-90% of the market. By the time the lawsuit was filed, mere two years later, they had already lost 15% of that, and by the time it was concluded, they only controlled 64%, due the the 147 competitors that were eating their business. Also, there no evidence that they actually raised prices to the consumer.

Zigurd3• 10 years ago

I'm cheering-ish for Google. I believe they've done things in good faith and even with an affirmative goal of fairness. It's fair to have to choose between making Google logo devices and making devices that support other ecosystems.

Google has to balance openness against keeping OEMs that are not good for the ecosystem from polluting it.

But they may have pushed too far with Google Play Services. GPS has many benefits in terms of being able to update older devices, but it also makes it more difficult to sell a non-Google-logo product because you have to duplicate much of what's in GPS for it to be viable.

Hopefully the result will be to add the platform-oriented features of GPS to AOSP or another open source project.

A worse outcome would be to have Google required to enable uglier forks of Android that also carry Google Play Services and Google's proprietary app suite.

flinty• 10 years ago

American Anti trust laws are present to protect consumers. European anti trust laws are present to protect competitors.

on_and_off• 10 years ago

Also, some of the things they are pushing are genuine additions to search :

-when I type weather, a weather card is all I want, I don't actually want to visit a weather site.

-age/height/birthdate of [name] -> all I want is the info card .

jboydyhacker2• 10 years ago

I can see arguments around Google Search impacting multiple startups and businesses of all kinds. Startups, carriers or whoever.

However, try making Google Maps your default map provider on Apple - or Chrome...

Very hard to make a case it's practice in apps in general is an issue here.

7Z7• 10 years ago

If Android is the dominant OS (80%? of smartphones) do iOS apps have a significant impact on what Google's Apps are doing in general?

*Though I guess the fact that the Google apps are not on 100% of Android installs affects that number again.

jboydyhacker2• 10 years ago

There are just two players in the market and the business practices of both should be used to determine what is common practice or anticompetitive.

Google started just a few years ago way behind ios. It got the share because of improvements in services - maps, mail, browser, notificaitons, and it’s OS. Apple has had a far more closed system around it’s default apps. While Apple’s apps have gotten shitter, Google’s default apps have gotten better.

I’d argue not the place to hit them. Focus the investigation on search- narrow the scope to that. They’ve got like 5 pending cases and it’s coming off as trying to stop US tech from “encroaching” on established EU businesses.

As a guy whose had to raise money- I get the “Google” question in almost every pitch. So I get there is an issue around search- but fuck their apps are good. I wish Apple would be forced to swap them out like Google Allows.

Google's Answer to EU Antitrust Complaints on Android

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