EU confirms antitrust probe into Android apps, News Corp. attacks Google news scraping
The European Commission and global media giant News Corp. on Monday confirmed separate actions against Google, with both factions suggesting that Google may be violating European regulations.
In a speech in Amsterdam the Commission's competition head, Margrethe Vestager, said that the organization was looking into Google's deals with Android phone makers and carriers -- specifically, whether requiring that certain Google apps be preloaded is hampering the market for upcoming apps, according to Bloomberg. Reuters noted that the Commission has already been investigating Android for about a year as a result of two earlier complaints, including concerns that Google was preventing device makers from creating and marketing competing versions of Android.
Meanwhile, Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso on Monday confirmed a complaint from News Corp. that it will begin to assess. While neither News Corp. nor the Commission have provided any formal details, a Bloomberg source suggested that the issue is the combination of Google's search engine and Google News, which by scraping information allegedly deters people from visiting news websites and generating ad revenue.
News Corp. owns a number of major news sites around the world, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the U.S., Britain's The Times, and Australia's news.com.au. Even though publications like the Journal nominally hide their full content behind a paywall, Google's rules stipulate that articles must be available to scrape, and indeed it's possible to bypass the Journal's paywall by manually searching for an article's headline.
In a speech in Amsterdam the Commission's competition head, Margrethe Vestager, said that the organization was looking into Google's deals with Android phone makers and carriers -- specifically, whether requiring that certain Google apps be preloaded is hampering the market for upcoming apps, according to Bloomberg. Reuters noted that the Commission has already been investigating Android for about a year as a result of two earlier complaints, including concerns that Google was preventing device makers from creating and marketing competing versions of Android.
Meanwhile, Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso on Monday confirmed a complaint from News Corp. that it will begin to assess. While neither News Corp. nor the Commission have provided any formal details, a Bloomberg source suggested that the issue is the combination of Google's search engine and Google News, which by scraping information allegedly deters people from visiting news websites and generating ad revenue.
News Corp. owns a number of major news sites around the world, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the U.S., Britain's The Times, and Australia's news.com.au. Even though publications like the Journal nominally hide their full content behind a paywall, Google's rules stipulate that articles must be available to scrape, and indeed it's possible to bypass the Journal's paywall by manually searching for an article's headline.
Comments
So what does Apple do that's different?
This is not about marketing agreements, this is about stopping handset manufactures from installing their own apps. Microsoft tried the same thing by not letting OEMs change the default desktop and we all know how that turned out. They are still paying the price for that to this day.
Dont be obtuse. Apple doesn't license iOS for others to install on their hardware. Android (and Microsoft) do. By forcing OEMs to include your versions (or exclude competitors Apps) they have both caught the attention of the EU. And just like MS lost with Internet Explorer, so will Google lose over Google Apps.
Apple owns the hardware and the software; it's sold as a complete unit by Apple, so they can put what they want on it. Google can do what they want with their Nexus phones, but they can't tell other manufacturers what to install – according to the EU anyway.
No great fan of Google, but this sounds like another case of the EU trying to line its coffers at the expense of a non-EU company.
Its simply a different model.
Amazing how how governments can't use their brains.
Reminds me of Apples ebook strategy that all of a sudden became illegal simply because some government stooge decided they didn't like it.
I fully understand that this is part of their business model. Just as Microsoft's OEM bundling agreement in the 1990s was part of theirs. Now it's up to lawmakers to decide if this business model is good for the marketplace or not.
Also note that embedded Linux systems existed long before Android did (and continue to exist). In a parallel reality where Android wasn't created, there'd more than likely be a committee of handset manufacturers who use embedded variants of Linux deciding on interoperability standards. I doubt they'd have achieved the same level of uniformity across handsets as Android has, but then that might not necessarily be a bad thing for consumers...
Did manufacturers have more "choice" in the past before Android existed?
When the hardware manufacturers want to include their own apps that compete with Google Play, Google disallows it.
Google stole the iOS interface and stole Java to produce Android. They didn't develop WebKit but usurped it and now attempting to do the same with Swift.
As Android is forced into being rewritten, Samsung should have a golden opportunity to push Tizen.
European laws are European laws. Google needs to abide by them or leave the European market like they did with China. Simple as that.
I myself don't want to pay 80% of my income in taxes. It's why I don't live in Europe. Google can whine about it all they want and their apologists can rant and rave about it. It doesn't change anything. Apple's business model seems acceptable and Google's is not.
Methinks Microsoft may still up to their tricks.