“After receiving a record-breaking €4.34 billion fine in the EU for violating anti-trust laws, Google has announced today changes to Android’s licensing model for the EU zone,” Catalin Cimpanu reports for ZDNet.
“The company plans to charge a fee to all Android phone makers that want to include free versions of its Google apps with the default versions of the Android OS they are shipping in EU states,” Cimpanu reports. “This means phone vendors will have to pay Google a fee for installing Chrome, Search, Gmail, Drive, Maps, Translate, YouTube, and above all, its Play Store app.”
“Until now, Google has only allowed phone vendors to ship the Play Store app with their phones only if they abide by strict rules. First, device makers had to include bundle of other official Google apps (Search, Chrome, Translate, Maps, etc.), and they had to agree not to ship unapproved forks (modifications) of the Android OS,” Cimpanu reports. “In July, the EU ruled that this practice was illegal and fined Google.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s nice to see some governmental organizations, quasi or otherwise, attempting to reign in at least some of Google’s abuses. Google wanted to be able to take the smartphone market by knocking off Apple’s iPhone and giving it away for “free,” but then they realized that they were ceding too much control – after all, Android phones are meant to supply Google with users’ personal data which they can then sell to advertisers; Google apps are the conduit – so Google tried to stuff the genie back in the bottle by making an “official” Android with bundled apps.
Besides the fact that all of these Google apps are really just personal data-siphoning and ad-profiling tracking utilities, it’s anticompetitive to force Android phone peddlers to include them just to gain access to Google’s insecure, malware-ridden Play Store which in the low-to-no-bar world of Android phonedom is considered a selling point.
The EC fined Google because Google:
• 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”).Google clearly breached EU antitrust rules as follows:
• Illegal tying of Google’s search and browser apps
• Illegal payments conditional on exclusive pre-installation of Google Search
• Illegal obstruction of development and distribution of competing Android operating systemsOn, BTW, here’s what Google’s Android looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
And, here’s what cellphones looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
People who buy Android phones and tablets reward thieves.
SEE ALSO:
Why Google owes the European Union $5 billion – July 18, 2018
EU hits Google with record €4.34 billion fine for abusing market dominance – July 18, 2018
BITCHES, LEAVE!
How about letting the user choose and pay.
Ship without them.
Heck, I would even pay for my copy of the OS.
The UK vendors will probably just pass on the cost to the consumer or since sideloading is allowed, suggest to more savvy users to simply sideload the Google Apps they want. In some ways this may actually benefit sales of devices that use device storage for only the Google Apps the user wants. At present many Google Android devices are not able to remove the Apps from devices though they can be disabled and ‘hidden’.
Also, on the first point mentioned “Illegal tying of Google’s search and browser apps”, wouldn’t this also mean Apple may be targeted next for a similar reason since browser Apps on iOS MUST use the iOS Webkit resulting in 3rd party browsers being reduced to ‘skins’ over the core of Safari?
Except “similar reason” is in a completely different situation that isn’t at all similar.
Google’s situation is MS all over again — dictating to manufacturers that it is supplying one element to them (the OS) how they can’t also create other products that don’t use that element.
Apple *is* the manufacturer. No-one, least of all the EU, is complaining about what Google does or doesn’t do on its own Pixl devices, or MS on its own Surface devices.
MS had 99+% of PC market, and Google has 75+% of Smartphone market BECAUSE they are dictating terms to other manufacturers that they are making money off of (more indirectly in the case of Google with data and ads), AND the consumer thus doesn’t have a direct choice in the matter because the business is done between MS and Google and their OEMs!
Don’t want Apple’s deal, go get one of a 1000 other smartphone’s that apparently “do the job just as well”.
Don’t want Google’s deal, go get a Samsung or a LG, or a… oh wait, you get Google’s deal anyway!
Let’s see Google and MS compete against Apple’s 20% of market on their own, with their own Pixl and Surface products. Where would those two massive, influential, invasive companies be then?
Good Luck with that Google!
Google is a …..
They forked WebKit = Chrome
They forked Linux = Android
They forked JAVA = Android
The list goes on and on…
They tell you that they are for the Open Source when they actually are hijacking Open Source projects for them to close.
And who forked BSD?
And Google has never made their search Open Source btw.
European Union has to hit Google harder. Obviously, the fine was not big enough.
This will hit Nokia?
There aren’t any European Android OEM’s left???