Europe's War on Google Could Ruin Android

[apache_lives]

EU needs to pick on APPLE before GOOGLE seriously

 

[RobWHS]

I just hope that android and apps stop spying us !!!

Despite the - rep this is true and I'm sure many know it.
If not then I suggest they read up what happens with users data before criticising.

 

[gopher1369]

"Why is crapple exempt from all of this?"

"Try doing that with Apple! Why do they not go after them?? "

Because Apple do not have a monolopy, Google do. For example here in the UK Google have 95% market share of internet searches.

 

[mitch074]

AOSP is free software. Android is (mostly) free software (mind driver blobs). Google Android is not free software, as in:
- you (or the phone provider) can't remove or replace closed source Google Apps to put yours instead,
- the phone provider can't switch back to "plain" Android if it wants to keep your Google certification and access to store,
- Google services run in an uninterruptible fashion and cannot be replaced by competition's once they're started,
- If you refuse Google's terms of services, pretty much all functionalities in your phone are disabled, you get constant nagging to accept them and eventual replacements will more often than not, not be the defaults when other apps call for their services, making overriding them overly complicated.

This is really reminiscent from Microsoft's days of Media Player/Internet Explorer integration; Here in the EU, the choice screen did lead to an upsurge in use for Firefox and Chrome, and strangely enough, soon after that, HTML5 really got underway with all browser makers onboard. Also, the freeing of SMB/CIFS specifications led to many improvements done to third-party software interactions with Microsoft services - and strangely, the latter suddenly got much more stable, nimble and secure : competition drove innovation and/or quality checkings...?

As said before, since Apple sells an iPhone with its own software, it is not susceptible to the same antitrust rules (it self-limited its own market).

Now, please remember that this accusation follows 5 years of inquiries, leading to a strong enough presumption of foul play by Google to start something which is, in fact, a trial : Google can still prove itself not guilty, or repentant enough to avoid the strongest reprisal.

 

[RobWHS]

AOSP is free software. Android is (mostly) free software (mind driver blobs). Google Android is not free software, as in:
- you (or the phone provider) can't remove or replace closed source Google Apps to put yours instead,
- the phone provider can't switch back to "plain" Android if it wants to keep your Google certification and access to store,
- Google services run in an uninterruptible fashion and cannot be replaced by competition's once they're started,
- If you refuse Google's terms of services, pretty much all functionalities in your phone are disabled, you get constant nagging to accept them and eventual replacements will more often than not, not be the defaults when other apps call for their services, making overriding them overly complicated.

This is really reminiscent from Microsoft's days of Media Player/Internet Explorer integration; Here in the EU, the choice screen did lead to an upsurge in use for Firefox and Chrome, and strangely enough, soon after that, HTML5 really got underway with all browser makers onboard. Also, the freeing of SMB/CIFS specifications led to many improvements done to third-party software interactions with Microsoft services - and strangely, the latter suddenly got much more stable, nimble and secure : competition drove innovation and/or quality checkings...?

As said before, since Apple sells an iPhone with its own software, it is not susceptible to the same antitrust rules (it self-limited its own market).

Now, please remember that this accusation follows 5 years of inquiries, leading to a strong enough presumption of foul play by Google to start something which is, in fact, a trial : Google can still prove itself not guilty, or repentant enough to avoid the strongest reprisal.

It's not free if your personal data is sold to fund projects.

 

[jimmysmitty]

If the Commission decides that Google has been similarly abusive regarding Android, it could force Google to make drastic changes in how the Android OS is installed and configured on handsets, just as, years ago, it forced Microsoft to limit the preinstallation of Internet Explorer on Windows PCs.

How is google's supposed "anti competitive" stance even related to the issue Microsoft had with IE integrated? With the Microsoft issue you had a piece of software so buried into the OS you couldn't rip it out without hosing the OS itself.

You can use Google search on any other device easily and and you can use a different search device on your Google device just as easily. Google is not trying to force one market with another market outside strictly the name alone. I guess it's illegal now for a company to have more than one product?

Go ahead and disable or uninstall Chrome from an Android phone. You can't. However, you can uninstall IE from Windows 7/8/8.1 and probably from 10 too. Yet in the EU Microsoft is forced to offer other companies browsers upon first startup with the option to remove IE. Why shouldn't Google and Apple also have to do the same?

Android, when first starting up, should offer other browsers as a choice. If one company has to do it, then so should the others.

Personally though I think it is BS. I think that neither company should have to offer a competing product in their own product. It would be like forcing McDonalds to also offer a Whopper from Burger King as an alternative to the Big Mac. It is just stupid. The EU thinks they are protecting consumers but instead they are making choices for them instead of letting them make their own. Then again after thousands of years of monarchies deciding fates I guess they would be used to it.

I don't hate Android but I am moving away from it. I have found it isn't what it used to be and neither is Google. They sell as much as they can no matter how you feel.

 

[Vlad Rose]

If the Commission decides that Google has been similarly abusive regarding Android, it could force Google to make drastic changes in how the Android OS is installed and configured on handsets, just as, years ago, it forced Microsoft to limit the preinstallation of Internet Explorer on Windows PCs.

How is google's supposed "anti competitive" stance even related to the issue Microsoft had with IE integrated? With the Microsoft issue you had a piece of software so buried into the OS you couldn't rip it out without hosing the OS itself.

You can use Google search on any other device easily and and you can use a different search device on your Google device just as easily. Google is not trying to force one market with another market outside strictly the name alone. I guess it's illegal now for a company to have more than one product?

Go ahead and disable or uninstall Chrome from an Android phone. You can't. However, you can uninstall IE from Windows 7/8/8.1 and probably from 10 too. Yet in the EU Microsoft is forced to offer other companies browsers upon first startup with the option to remove IE. Why shouldn't Google and Apple also have to do the same?

Android, when first starting up, should offer other browsers as a choice. If one company has to do it, then so should the others.

Personally though I think it is BS. I think that neither company should have to offer a competing product in their own product. It would be like forcing McDonalds to also offer a Whopper from Burger King as an alternative to the Big Mac. It is just stupid. The EU thinks they are protecting consumers but instead they are making choices for them instead of letting them make their own. Then again after thousands of years of monarchies deciding fates I guess they would be used to it.

I don't hate Android but I am moving away from it. I have found it isn't what it used to be and neither is Google. They sell as much as they can no matter how you feel.

You couldn't uninstall IE from the Windows 98 era since it was tied into the explorer shell; which is when the lawsuit happened. With chrome on my android phone, all I have to do is go to the play store and click 'uninstall'; no more Chrome. No version of Windows out there offers what web browser to use when first starting up and IE is installed by default.

 

[sandman65]

So when is the EU going to open up an anti-trust against apple. I dislike siri and i would love to use bing

 

[jimmysmitty]

If the Commission decides that Google has been similarly abusive regarding Android, it could force Google to make drastic changes in how the Android OS is installed and configured on handsets, just as, years ago, it forced Microsoft to limit the preinstallation of Internet Explorer on Windows PCs.

How is google's supposed "anti competitive" stance even related to the issue Microsoft had with IE integrated? With the Microsoft issue you had a piece of software so buried into the OS you couldn't rip it out without hosing the OS itself.

You can use Google search on any other device easily and and you can use a different search device on your Google device just as easily. Google is not trying to force one market with another market outside strictly the name alone. I guess it's illegal now for a company to have more than one product?

Go ahead and disable or uninstall Chrome from an Android phone. You can't. However, you can uninstall IE from Windows 7/8/8.1 and probably from 10 too. Yet in the EU Microsoft is forced to offer other companies browsers upon first startup with the option to remove IE. Why shouldn't Google and Apple also have to do the same?

Android, when first starting up, should offer other browsers as a choice. If one company has to do it, then so should the others.

Personally though I think it is BS. I think that neither company should have to offer a competing product in their own product. It would be like forcing McDonalds to also offer a Whopper from Burger King as an alternative to the Big Mac. It is just stupid. The EU thinks they are protecting consumers but instead they are making choices for them instead of letting them make their own. Then again after thousands of years of monarchies deciding fates I guess they would be used to it.

I don't hate Android but I am moving away from it. I have found it isn't what it used to be and neither is Google. They sell as much as they can no matter how you feel.

You couldn't uninstall IE from the Windows 98 era since it was tied into the explorer shell; which is when the lawsuit happened. With chrome on my android phone, all I have to do is go to the play store and click 'uninstall'; no more Chrome. No version of Windows out there offers what web browser to use when first starting up and IE is installed by default.

Notice I stated the version of OS that could be done in. It is true that IE was integrated into WIndows 98 but then again it is Microsofts software and they were trying a new solution to the OS GUI. But hey I guess you can't do what you want with your product only what you are told to do.

http/www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-ie8-firefox-windows-7,8343.html

That is from 2009 but it was in 2010 that they stopped offering IE8 in EU versions of 7. And to top it off there are the "N" editions which are stripped of media playing abilities (no WMP, WMC etc).

As for "uninstalling" Chrome, on my Droid Bionic, S4, S5 and S6 I can uninstall the updates but I cannot remove it. It is built into the base OS deployment and included on every Android based phone.

The funny thing is that like Android, you can use any browser or media player that you want in Windows. They just have these in to have out of the box functionality. Again, I think it is stupid to require a company to promote their competition. The whole idea behind competition is that you offer a better service you get sales, they offer a better version they get sales, you offer a better service you get the sales back and so on and so forth.

My whole point is that you cannot state this for one company, Microsoft, and not for the others, Google/Apple. That is an unfair market.

You want even worse?

http/techcrunch.com/2015/04/17/french-senate-backs-bid-to-force-google-to-disclose-search-algorithm-workings/#.jikpwp:w1Gr

Again, I can't wait to buy a Burger King Whopper from McDonalds in the near future or go to a Apple store to pick up my Dell PC.

"Why is crapple exempt from all of this?"

"Try doing that with Apple! Why do they not go after them?? "

Because Apple do not have a monolopy, Google do. For example here in the UK Google have 95% market share of internet searches.

Their search engine has nothing to do with Android. That is vastly different. However, the French have a solution for that. See the above link.

Soon you wont be able to tell legit searches from crap and search engines that should die off (AOL and soooo many others) will thrive as you will click their link giving them add click revenue.

 

[Vlad Rose]

If the Commission decides that Google has been similarly abusive regarding Android, it could force Google to make drastic changes in how the Android OS is installed and configured on handsets, just as, years ago, it forced Microsoft to limit the preinstallation of Internet Explorer on Windows PCs.

How is google's supposed "anti competitive" stance even related to the issue Microsoft had with IE integrated? With the Microsoft issue you had a piece of software so buried into the OS you couldn't rip it out without hosing the OS itself.

You can use Google search on any other device easily and and you can use a different search device on your Google device just as easily. Google is not trying to force one market with another market outside strictly the name alone. I guess it's illegal now for a company to have more than one product?

Go ahead and disable or uninstall Chrome from an Android phone. You can't. However, you can uninstall IE from Windows 7/8/8.1 and probably from 10 too. Yet in the EU Microsoft is forced to offer other companies browsers upon first startup with the option to remove IE. Why shouldn't Google and Apple also have to do the same?

Android, when first starting up, should offer other browsers as a choice. If one company has to do it, then so should the others.

Personally though I think it is BS. I think that neither company should have to offer a competing product in their own product. It would be like forcing McDonalds to also offer a Whopper from Burger King as an alternative to the Big Mac. It is just stupid. The EU thinks they are protecting consumers but instead they are making choices for them instead of letting them make their own. Then again after thousands of years of monarchies deciding fates I guess they would be used to it.

I don't hate Android but I am moving away from it. I have found it isn't what it used to be and neither is Google. They sell as much as they can no matter how you feel.

You couldn't uninstall IE from the Windows 98 era since it was tied into the explorer shell; which is when the lawsuit happened. With chrome on my android phone, all I have to do is go to the play store and click 'uninstall'; no more Chrome. No version of Windows out there offers what web browser to use when first starting up and IE is installed by default.

Notice I stated the version of OS that could be done in. It is true that IE was integrated into WIndows 98 but then again it is Microsofts software and they were trying a new solution to the OS GUI. But hey I guess you can't do what you want with your product only what you are told to do.

http/www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-ie8-firefox-windows-7,8343.html

That is from 2009 but it was in 2010 that they stopped offering IE8 in EU versions of 7. And to top it off there are the "N" editions which are stripped of media playing abilities (no WMP, WMC etc).

As for "uninstalling" Chrome, on my Droid Bionic, S4, S5 and S6 I can uninstall the updates but I cannot remove it. It is built into the base OS deployment and included on every Android based phone.

The funny thing is that like Android, you can use any browser or media player that you want in Windows. They just have these in to have out of the box functionality. Again, I think it is stupid to require a company to promote their competition. The whole idea behind competition is that you offer a better service you get sales, they offer a better version they get sales, you offer a better service you get the sales back and so on and so forth.

My whole point is that you cannot state this for one company, Microsoft, and not for the others, Google/Apple. That is an unfair market.

You want even worse?

http/techcrunch.com/2015/04/17/french-senate-backs-bid-to-force-google-to-disclose-search-algorithm-workings/#.jikpwp:w1Gr

Again, I can't wait to buy a Burger King Whopper from McDonalds in the near future or go to a Apple store to pick up my Dell PC.

"Why is crapple exempt from all of this?"

"Try doing that with Apple! Why do they not go after them?? "

Because Apple do not have a monolopy, Google do. For example here in the UK Google have 95% market share of internet searches.

Their search engine has nothing to do with Android. That is vastly different. However, the French have a solution for that. See the above link.

Soon you wont be able to tell legit searches from crap and search engines that should die off (AOL and soooo many others) will thrive as you will click their link giving them add click revenue.

Wow yeah, I see from your article about Microsoft being forced to having a choice for their browser in the European market. I was completely unaware of that in the United States here, where they just stick IE on there and you have to take it off yourself.

And I did look into the Chrome thing in that you are right that you can't fully remove chrome from android. You can uninstall it so it doesn't load anymore, but parts of the browser as still embedded into the OS. I can see that becoming a problem as there would be no way to protect yourself from a Chrome vulnerability short of them patching Chrome.

I do agree, if Europe does have their way, as you said DcDonald's would have to start selling Whoppers.

 

[js_72]

A Bing search bar on your Android home screen? Yahoo Maps replacing Google Maps? Microsoft Outlook instead of Gmail?

Yes, No, would prefer Bing maps, Yes for sure

 

[therealduckofdeath]

Obvious trolling headline is just that.
Did the aftermath of the antitrust limitations on Windows ruin Windows?

Android might work MARGINALLY different if the EU find Android breaching antitrust laws. NO ONE, including the EU wins on destroying Android, and that is not the purpose with antitrust laws.

 

[turbzz]

Interesting, why doesnt this happen to Apple??

 

[WebBeachBoy]

Long, long overdue that someone should regulate some of the illegal activities that Google is up to. Google's main business now is collecting information on all it's users on behalf of the NSA whilst keeping them stupified with media hype and trivia bunk. Get rid of "Android" (i.e. Google under a different name) and you will be able to use your 'dumbphones' without having to ask permission from Google. I am sick of Google telling me that I cannot take photo's with my own Smartphone, that I bought and paid for and is MINE, without having a Google account, my name, address, email and all my personal details colated on their server. Thank god for Kingosoft to get rid of their shit !

 

[Geef]

Just wait until the top companies all combine and give us all we wanted... just before taking over the world...
It will be known as " GOOPPLESOFT.NET " Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Skynet.

 

[davide445]

In my idea EU commission is not worried about the specific Google dominant position but about the fact US ICT companies are clearly dominating all the major information transaction, allowing for grateher US intelligence into EU citizen and corporate data.
Secondary as was for the Intel case no one is complaining if a company make better products, but there are laws that prevent the misuse of your market position to prevent buyers to have a choice, such as illegal Intel agreement with distributors. It's not such as "leave the market do his work", but to protect buyers (especially private one) from much stronger forces, for their own goodness. Government need to work for citizen first, market it's at citizen service, not the opposite.
Said that, and we are only at third place, we can start complaining about the specific response EU commission is defining for this problems.

 

[RobWHS]

Google's main business now is collecting information on all it's users on behalf of the NSA

They've been doing that for years. The EU didn't bat an eyelid when Google mapped the streets of Europe.
I told one of the Google cars to get the f**** away from my home as he parked outside trying to film a yard at the rear of our property. (He was encroaching on private property without permission so my rant was justified) A total invasion of privacy IMO..........A full invasion is imminent, you will obey!

 

[Bon_]

WRONG - This articel is all wrong, the "may become a suit" is because Google is using EU citizen (And maybe US also) to marketing target there own stores (Google store ect.) over paiding customers and more visited sites, as there search engine was design to do in the first place.

Giving other stores an unfair competition - That is why the EU courts want google to remove it from there search engine again - Google - not possible - EU answer, then remove the App and offer others.
Very simple!

So Paul Wagenseil - read the transscripts before "EU attacks Google". EU is doing there job - like someelse does not.

 

[billybobser]

Slight bias in the article here (slight understatement also).

I live in the EU and the main issue they have with google is not what the article states, it's that google directs people using their services to their products. Prioritising their adverts on google search for example. Uncompetitive.

It isn't a War, this investigation has been going on for years and Google have continued down the path ignoring the EU's competition commission requests. While I'm no fan of the EU commission, this article paints them as monkeys trying to crush US companies.

I'm also happy with how my android and google services work and can quite easily ignore the obvious paid for top searches.

Apple get away with it because they don't force anything on anyone, they do it all themselves and can protect their ecosystem.

Google needs to play by the rules in the EU or suck up the impending fine.

It'd be nice if they also paid tax too.

 

[billybobser]

The EU didn't bat an eyelid when Google mapped the streets of Europe.

They did, especially in Germany, where public photography and filming is not a right and you must ask people's permission.

Google was also sued for mining data from people's unsecured networks while they were doing this.