| ▲ | frollogaston 4 hours ago |
| These are basically meant as tarriffs, right? |
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| ▲ | bilekas 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| No, these are anti-trust fines. If you want to participate in the EU zone, you can't have monopolistic behaviors. It might sound strange for the US, but you can't simply corner a market and then claim it's innovation and 'good for the customer'. The EU has a LONG history of these regulations, it's nothing new but the more rich a company becomes the more these fines are just the price of doing business. Instead, here's a wild take. Why don't they just follow the regulations and continue to make profits. |
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| ▲ | hparadiz 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Google made Android open source for free and you can even see this on this on HN as everyone glazes GrapheneOS. Without Android there would not be an entire ecosystem of software. Google even complied with a previous rulings about search engine choice and browser choice. In fact Android has always allowed you to set those things. As usual Europe can't innovate so just taxes people out of their market entirely. Why would anyone want to locate their business in Europe after reading a headline like this? Have you guys ever considered making your own operating system? Your own tech companies? | | |
| ▲ | 4thguy 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think you might need to reconsider how open Android actually is given the recent moves. | | |
| ▲ | hparadiz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | You don't even know how good you have it. With incentives like this what company would make anything open in the future? You're punishing them for it. They're gonna make it like iOS precisely because of rulings like this. | | |
| ▲ | latexr 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > They're gonna make it like iOS precisely because of rulings like this. And then what? It’s not like iOS is exempt from the rules. See all the trouble they’re having with the DMA. | |
| ▲ | 4thguy 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm sorry, but what does "pre-installation deals with smartphone makers" have to do with being open? |
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| ▲ | 9dev 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Google made Android open source for free And Hitler built the highways in Germany. What does that even prove? They can still abuse Android for vendor lock-in, or as a sales funnel to their commercial offerings, or as a data source for a myriad of things users did never really consent to. > As usual Europe can't innovate so just taxes people out of their market entirely. Yawn. Last time I looked, big tech is still wholly present all across the EU, only that I have the option to install apps from alternative stores on my iPhone. Also, the EU as an institution isn't the same thing as European companies. Go check the machines in any factory near you, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll find a German one in it. > Have you guys ever considered making your own operating system? You might want to look up where Linus Torvalds created Linux. | | |
| ▲ | bilekas 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Go check the machines in any factory near you, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll find a German one in it. It is always interesting to see how underestimated the EU is in terms of manufacturing and pharma for example, they're unsung and not always glamourous industries, but nobody does them like the EU. The tech innovation does happen more in the US, there has always been simply more private capital thrown around there and thats fine. Comparing the EU and the US in terms of economic activities and procedures is a futile exercise. They're just not the same, and thats by design. | |
| ▲ | petcat 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > You might want to look up where Linus Torvalds created Linux. He also immediately relocated to the US and made the Linux Foundation an American company though. | | |
| ▲ | 9dev an hour ago | parent [-] | | That still doesn’t take away from the point that innovation does happen in Europe; the first version of Linux was created and released while he was at the university of Helsinki. If you want another example, Fraunhofer created the MP3 format, which went on to revolutionise the world of digital audio. Many of the LLM foundational science came from European scientists. However, when it comes to ones to turning science into products, the USA seems to have an edge quite often.
It’s just not as mono-dimensional as GP framed it. |
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| ▲ | hparadiz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | 9dev 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Eh, if that’s the only thing you read from that comment, I’m not really interested in continuing the conversation. The opportunities for tech are worse in the EU compared to the US, nobody denies that. But I don’t think the existence of Google and Apple is the only criterion of success to judge a continent on. The world has room for different approaches to things. |
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| ▲ | epolanski 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The EU's concern is less "is it technically possible?" and more whether Google's licensing and commercial agreements discourage effective competition. In particular: - Google forced every manufacturer to have search and chrome on every android phone if they wanted access to Google Play. No technical reason, just forcing their position. This is why Samsung, despite investing on their browser, was still forced to ship with Chrome. Browser competition on mobile was rigged by default. - Manufacturers signed agreements making it de facto impossible to ship Android forks not approved by Google. If you want Play Services, you can't ship a fork Android did not approve, no matter whether you're Sony or Samsung. Again, no technical reasons, just forcing their hand. - Google paid manufacturers so Google Search was going to be the only search option on that phone, preventing competition. None of these practices make the landscape better for the user or incentivize competition when the game is rigged at contract level. As for the rest of your post: Europe (but also Japan or South Korea or pretty much the whole world) does not enjoy the corporate laws, abundance of capital and risk prone mentality the US does. Those are problems. Over regulation (or better, inconsistent one across EU) is also a plague. But that's unrelated with the fact that companies living in monopolies commercially abuse their positions. US regulators themselves have found the practice of paying Apple to ship Google as default search engine to be questionable. | | |
| ▲ | hparadiz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The point of those agreements is to make sure those phone manufacturers didn't basterdize android with their garbage crapware like they all want to do. Google is actually protecting the average user in this situation by mandating some standards. They could simply lock Android down as closed source forever and move on from all of this. | | |
| ▲ | cbg0 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Nothing's stopping them from doing that, but you're incredibly naive if you think they're "protecting the average user" out of the goodness of their heart. | |
| ▲ | epolanski 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The point of those agreements is to make sure those phone manufacturers didn't basterdize android with their garbage crapware You're naive if you think these deals were about protecting the user. It's a commercial and strategic play to make sure users end up on Google's core business products. Manufacturers get a free OS they don't need to develop, Google gets their core business products in every user's hands as default. They didn't develop an open source browser and OS for any other reason than money. And they pay (Apple, Mozilla, etc) or commercially force the usage of those products wherever they can. |
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| ▲ | SockThief 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > In 2018, the European Commission slapped Google with the record-breaking penalty on the grounds that it abused Android's mobile dominance... What do you think? |
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| ▲ | pjc50 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You could address the underlying issue? |
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| ▲ | xienze 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Google has attempted to allay the Commission’s concerns over the years such as allowing Android users to switch between search engines and browsers so they are not tied to the company’s apps. | | |
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| ▲ | petesergeant 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| No, but they'll be treated them as such by the administration, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing |
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| ▲ | xienze 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| More like an ATM. Need some money? Let an American tech company operate with no issue for years and then one day "whoa we checked and you've been violating <some vaguely-defined law about privacy> for years. Who knew? That'll be five billion Euros please." |
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| ▲ | shmeeed an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | That's one way to see it, if you squint hard enough. As I see it, a company unlawfully gained billions by breaking the law while doing business in our jurisdiction. There's nothing "vaguely defined" about european privacy laws. Google just chose to ignore them best they could, and thought they'd get away with it because they're so big. The fact that it took years to build a solid case against their myriad of corporate lawyer weasels isn't the gotcha you think it is. | |
| ▲ | realusername 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If anything, the EU has been slow to act, these companies have been operating against all possible antitrust laws for years and continue to do so despite being fined, probably the fine isn't large enough. | |
| ▲ | xxs 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >That'll be five billion Euros please." feel free to pull out of the market, if you dislike the rules. Google pulled out of China for instance. | | |
| ▲ | knollimar 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | That seems like a corcular argument. Is this not chiefly a complaint about the rules? Saying "if Google doesn't like the rule it can leave" is a non argument. |
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| ▲ | hparadiz 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's literally what is happening here. It's a shakedown. Nothing more. | | |
| ▲ | petesergeant 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It's a shakedown. Nothing more. Perhaps believable, had it not survived eight years of litigation ending at the ECJ, or had there been some informal "pay up or else" demand attached, neither of which is true. | | |
| ▲ | xienze 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Perhaps believable, had it not survived eight years of litigation ending at the ECJ You're of course making the assumption the ECJ isn't biased towards ruling in favor of the EU in these disputes... > or had there been some informal "pay up or else" demand attached, neither of which is true. Isn't there a formal "pay up or else" demand attached? If Google doesn't pay, then what? I would take this a lot more seriously if the EU said "look, these violations are so egregious we simply can't trust you to operate in the EU anymore." No, they're OK with Google apparently not changing much of anything and being allowed to continue operating so long as they pay the fine first. | | |
| ▲ | cbg0 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > No, they're OK with Google apparently not changing much of anything and being allowed to continue operating so long as they pay the fine first. This is false. They were asked to: - Stop tying Google Search and Chrome to the Play Store. - Permit competing Android versions. - Stop exclusivity incentives for Google Search. - Provide genuine room for rival search engines and browsers. This is separate from the fine and they were given 90 days in 2018 to comply with the above. | |
| ▲ | piva00 17 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The fine is not a one-and-done like fines are levied against corporations in the USA, most fines against corporations in the EU can be levied many times if the infringing behaviour is not corrected. | |
| ▲ | Kbelicius 29 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > No, they're OK with Google apparently not changing much of anything and being allowed to continue operating so long as they pay the fine first. But google did change how they do things thanks to this case thus making everything you wrote some anti-government fiction. |
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