http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/15/8418577/google-antitrust-eu-monopolistic-search-fines

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/15/8419605/google-europe-android-antitrust-investigation

The Android one in particular parallels a lot of what Microsoft was found guilty of in the 90s.

There's a curious parallel between Android and Windows. For WinXP and earlier, OEMs made all sorts of changes, pre-installed lots of random software, and generally just broke things. Microsoft started cracking down, to the point that modern Windows actually kinda works, and OEMs have very strict limits in how they can customize it.

For early Android 2.x devices, OEMs customized everything. Now Google's cracking down. Also, by moving functionality out of AOSP and into Play Services, Google's able to ship new functionality to old devices, raising the bar and making it easier for developers to support those old devices. This sort of updating also has important security benefits (e.g., patching security bugs in the WebView component).

I suppose with the EU is going to have to grapple with is the extent to which these sorts of moves, taken by Google, were done for anticompetitive reasons or whether they were done for other reasons. And even if the motive was pure, was the downstream effect still legal? I expect there to be a lot of wrangling along those lines. Google might point to seemingly obvious examples, like all the steps they take to disadvantage SEO. Is it anticompetitive to nuke web sites that try to game your rankings? Certainly not. Is it anticompetitive to set baseline features and requirements for Android, which helps developers and protects users, if it disadvantages third-party platform developers? That's where the fun will happen.

No surprise here, but I'm tired of the EU's constant crackdown against US tech companies, and Google in particular.

Regarding Android, as far as I understand it, OEMs can get Android for free and put whatever they want on it. They just won't be able to have the Play Store on there. Amazon decided this was worth it to them. Couldn't OEMs put the Amazon app store on their phones?

Regardless, I'm not crying for any OEM in this case because I've never seen a decent app from any of these manufacturers. Even [and especially] Samsung is terrible at software design. I'm not going to go boo hoo for Xiaomi or whoever is complaining because they want to put their own email or calendar app on their phone.

Regarding search: I'm just sick of this issue. I get that Google has an extreme dominance in the EU market, but I don't see how they would be at fault in that situation. Switching to another search provider is free and takes five seconds. Bing and Yahoo are even easier to type.

I also don't see how Google should be faulted for promoting their own services over other providers. When I search Google I WANT their services to come up. That's why I'm using Google. If I searched for an address on Google and got Mapquest results, I'd be pissed off.


I'll fully understand if I'm not seeing both sides of this issue due to my Google Goggles (not the app ), so I'd love to hear someone explain the other side of this argument. All I know is that from what I've heard, the EU's tech legislation so far has done nothing (I believe the browser ballot had no effect on market shares), and annoyed people (any EU people want to speak to the cookies banners you get presented with on various websites?).

It's not just the Google Play Store. It's Google Play Services. They've moved all sorts of features out of the core AOSP libraries and into Services, which is a separate app that Google updates frequently, even on older phones where the manufacturer has otherwise abandoned its customers to an obsolete version of Android.

Because Services somewhat solves this obsolescence issue, app authors use it, and any app that depends on Services will only run on a phone with Services installed. And Google has rules and constraints, a whole contractual relationship thing.

I suspect those contracts are where the Android-related anti-trust action is going to go.

Ah, that's a good summary of the situation. Yeah, I can see how that might get them into hot water. I'm familiar with Play Services, and I think it's made the product better. I guess that in the end, it's a result of way in which Google launched Android. If they had put out their own phone with their own OS, they'd basically just be doing the same thing Apple does, except Google at least lets you change all the default apps (after the fact).

EU Does not really know what competition is.

I can say that, I am European.


Jokes apart, of course I am oversimplifying here, but I really do not agree with their approach at regulating competition. It seems quite superficial and illogical on their part. The whole MS/IE was IMHO ridiculous, and so it is today's issue against Google.

Are you aware Microsoft was punishing OEMs for using Netscape internally? And punishing them if they shipped Netscape (while still keeping IE) and letting the user choose? These punishments over time helped lead the OEM into ruin in the end. An OEM with one of the highest customer satisfaction scores in the industry back then.

And the IE situation was looked into mostly due to Microsoft being fined for forcing OEMs to buy a copy of Windows for every machine shipped. Including the ones that shipped without Windows back when OS choice existed in the early 90s. These actions led to Windows becoming a monopoly, thus putting Microsoft under some different rules to prevent monopoly abuse. Their actions with IE were illegal under both US and EU laws.

Ridiculous is also something I'd use to describe it, but aimed at Microsoft, not the US DOJ and EU for investigating.

Google has similar ridiculous agreements and punishments they have pushed on some OEMs when it comes to Android. One of these situations is why my initial attempt to try Android didn't turn out well with the Galaxy S. One situation as a developer I'm aware of I'm still probably bound by NDA, so won't raise here unless the EU investigation reveals it.

The EU has also mentioned they are investigating due to complaints from other US based businesses. This isn't an EU vs US situation.

I don't recall if any similar issues came up with Apple around that time? I seem to remember some companies trying to build Apple clones and not getting very far.

Edit: The wikipedia page doesn't say anything about Apple getting in trouble for it. I know it's not the same thing as the Microsoft situation from that period, but it's in the same neighborhood.

Those other US based businesses wouldn't happen to be Apple and Microsoft?

Apple for a time did license MacOS. They never had OS monopoly status, nor did they attach anti-competitive agreements to the licensing contracts. They also paid a lot to terminate the agreements early. This happened sometime shortly after Jobs return.

One company outright was bought by Apple, and the exec leading it went on to lead the hardware group for a while. Jon Rubinstein Is the person, I think Power Computing is the one Apple bought.

Nope, neither would have standing in the Android case. Skyhook likely is one, of several.

In the search case, it's most likely Microsoft and Yahoo.

Would someone like to address this investigation? It seems like the more ludicrous of the two to me.

I well am. I think you're confusing two very different cases.

In 2010 the EU found MS guilty for shipping IE with its OS and forced it to use a ballot screen.
>That< I do find ridiculous, yes, and I disagree with the EU on all accounts on that.
That, also, has nothing to do with the mid 90s (bigger) case - in the US - you mention, and it does not involve the US at all. MS shipped as a consequence of the EU ruling two different versions of Windows: one with the ballot screen in EU, the other without, in the US and other markets.


Also, while I did agree with the US ruling in the 90s - completely different case - , I am not aware the EU having anything to do with it back then.

Edit: I looked at wikipedia about Eu and MS, and it is possible you are referring to a third different case involving Sun complaining that MS did not disclose APIs to allow third parties media applications to work as well as OS integrated ones. Microsoft was forced to release more info. I also agree with that ruling, for the records, so I am not always in disagreement with EU Commission.

I think you are completely right here, concerning market share itself. The main reason why in EU Bing is not popular, is that it is just worse than Google in returning EU-relevant/local search results. I too don't see how Google is, from this specific respect, preventing anyone else to compete. Also, Bing is improving by the day, and I am quite positive over time they will gain share.

How and if Google decides to return search results, and if it is being anti-competitive there, may be an issue, but it is a completely different one and I don't see how it hurts Bing. Actually, if Google was found guilty, that would help the competition.

They weren't just found guilty of shipping a browser in their OS. They were found guilty of using their OS dominant/monopoly position to have unfair advantages in multiple areas (browsers, media players, and servers). It's all connected. The ballot screen was seen as a possible way to undo some of the damage from the anticompetitive move. The EU specifically cites case T-201/04 and IP/04/382 to establish Windows as a dominant OS. The complaint from Sun is what kicked off IP/04/382. Without it, the browser action would have not happened in the EU.

The US cases were also connected in the same way. The cases against Microsoft's forcing of OEMs to buy Windows for every PC out the door then helped the larger anti trust case kick off.

This is the key reason Ubuntu, RedHat, Be, Apple, or any other OS vendor has not seen similar action from the EU regarding browsers in the OS. They lack a dominant/monopoly position, so they don't fall under anti trust laws the same way. Both the US and EU have these additional anti trust protections that only come into the picture when a monopoly exists.

Having a monopoly is not illegal, but using it to quash competition in non monopoly markets is. How that monopoly is obtained isn't relevant. It could be via previously ruled illegal actions like Windows, or reaching that position via legitimate competitive actions in a once crowded market. The end state is all that comes into play when being judged to have a monopoly position or not.

All of this is key to both cases Google faces. Has Google used it's dominant position it legitimately earned in search to then have an unfair advantage in other web services? (The EU in the linked article at the top specifically cites Google Shopping). This has nothing to do with competition directly in the search space with Bing and others.

Does Google have a dominant position in the mobile OS space, and if so has it used that position to gain unfair advantages in other areas?

Skyhook here remains a key example for me on the Android side. Skyhook had a lucrative business being able to provide more accurate location tracking via WiFi detection. Skyhook and a few companies who shipped Android devices entered into contracts to ship their technology. Google forced those companies to shred those contracts, or face the risk of not shipping their devices with Android. And in turn later moved all location services out of the open source part of Android and all into the closed off Google Play Services.

Similar to how Microsoft went from having IE as a separate download to a very integrated piece of the OS, and forcing OEMs to shred contracts with Netscape. An action by Microsoft that would have had far less impact had they not had dominated the OS space.

Tom,

The fact that the EU used previous ruling to determine Windows was dominant (which is per se perfectly legal) does not mean the cases are "all connected". Windows dominance was just a fact at the basis of the argument that such dominance had been used for supposed illegal actions concerning IE.

You can read in my previous posts what my opinion is about the other rulings mentioned here.

Taym,

We appear to be talking past each other, and I apologize for my part in doing so. Possibly due to interleaving our opinions into factual statements of what the legal systems in both regions has done.

We both agree Microsoft had a dominant position in the OS space. Both the EU and US have laws that only come into effect when a dominant (or monopoly to use a different word) position is established. Our split with our opinions seems to be focused around the EU action against Microsoft and IE.

My personal bias comes from seeing first hand how IE caused a lot of turmoil and reduced competition not only in browser choice, but also computer choice. And then having first hand experience seeing Google do similar with Android as both a former consumer and developer.

We both agree that dominant positions are legal (though how Microsoft obtained it was judged illegal). I used the term connected as both the US and EU had separate investigations to decide if Windows was dominant, which then enabled cases against Microsoft about other areas to go forward. In the US in particular, many different cases from various states were collapsed into the federal case.


Much of my discussion here is to help others understand the reason the EU is starting these Android and Search cases. The search one is due to the laws in both regions seeing their search success as a dominant position. The FTC investigation calls out Googles behavior as being harmful to consumers, but they stood by their recommendation of not launching a formal case against them. The split now is that the FTC feels the settlement from 2013 is good enough, while the EU does not.

The Android case first has to determine if Android has a dominant position as well, so more of that case up front will focus on that aspect before moving to possible abuses from a dominant position.

-tom

My guess is that their disagreement stems from the difference in market share between the regions. Google has a far greater percentage of the market in the EU than in the US. I still don't see how in either case their behavior harms consumers.

Tom,

Absolutely. I did not intend to talk past you, so if I did I apologize too. Thank you for saying this, I appreciate your intent to clarify and I hope I can do the same.


To clarify and sum up as much as I can my posts and view, all I mean is that I've found myself in disagreement with the EU commission few times, both on principle and in practice, a the very core of their rulings.
Historically, I've found myself usually and mostly in agreement with the US DOJ.

Hence, my joking statement that the EU has no clue or something along those lines. That's all.


For example, while in the IE case I disagree IE itself harmed competition and so consumers (Please notice this was in fact not a case in the US, see my statement above), I am not entering now this discussion and for the sake of the argument I want to assume it in fact did, as the EU Commission claimed. It is my opinion that:

1. Preventing a company from enriching its products with more functionality and features and parts, or deciding to establish to what extent it can, in principle, generates a far greater damage to consumers, and it is not the way to address the issue.

2. Eradicating a (core) part of a product from it, was in different ways just as wrong in principle as it was silly in practice. (IE engine could not be removed). EU Commission approach to this was quite superficial and technically naive.

3. It honestly seems quite evident and factual to me that the ballot screen brought no benefit in competition at all. It brought just more clicks and confusion during installation. Users who knew nothing about browsers did not benefit from it (in ways I can describe if you want, as my personal direct experience), while users who knew about browsers did not need the thing to choose what they liked.
Instead, IE lost market share because of sound, honest competition. Other products were better in ways that many users valued.
Now, if MS was not disclosing information (APIs and such) to competition preventing them to create compelling browsers, as it did in other occasions for other kind of software, that would be a different story. But, this was not the case. And I won't enter into the issues of web standards and deviation from them. That's not my point. My point is that this was a wrong solution that brought no real tangible benefit, and real and tangible annoyance.


With Google and search in particular, I too can't see how Google market share per se is harming competition and consumers. Bing is finding nice and smart ways to compete, trying to find its ways by being embedded in other services, for example. If and when it will be perceptibly better, users will switch to it - even though their machines came pre-configured to use google.com as a home page.
So, while I disagreed with the DOJ in the first place, I am happy they decided not to pursue Google any further. The EU commission instead is not happy yet. I can't but ask myself if they should not put their resources somewhere more useful, given what they've done in the past.

Admittedly, EU Commission more heavy handed approach at interfering into product and service design is in line with a general, historically consistent, tendency of the EU Governments to attempt to shape the market the way they (and not necessarily citizens) see fit. They historically have been really (really!) bad at that and, as a European, I may be biased against and suspicious of them.

I'm still a little confused with your reply here. Are you meaning there wasn't a legal case regarding IE in the US? Or that you agree with the US DOJ Findings of Fact document that did state IE harmed competition and consumers in the US in the past (late 90s), but don't agree it was still harmful in the EU in 2009?

It's hard to tell someones position regarding the DOJ specifically with Microsoft, as the DOJ themselves had a radical shift in their case due to the elections in 2000. Along with the initial judge who wrote the Findings of Fact later being removed from the case due to comments he made to the press.

Personally, I found the browser ballot punishment somewhat fitting, considering Microsoft punished an OEM for doing the same with IE and Netscape. Though I generally agree with you that the end result in the EU didn't bring much benefit. Google using the world's most valuable ad space (google.com) to promote Chrome helped more to take desktop marketshare away from IE I believe.


Again it's important to note the case has nothing to do with competition in the organic search market, outside establishing Google as the dominant search engine. It's specifically about Google using their search engine to promote their own unrelated services above competitors services.

Though this brings up a good question (and this is being put forward as an example only, not trying to line it up with the exact investigations). Sites like kayak.com and others exist to help people search or flights and book them. How would one classify the site? Is it a travel booking site akin to going to a travel agent in a brick and mortar store? Is it a search engine?

The FTC classifies Google.com as "Universal Search" when it includes other Google services, separate from a pure "organic internet search" that Google.com once was. It then classifies both Google Travel and Kayak as "Vertical sites/services/property"

Thus due to this separation, they see Google Flights results showing up on google.com universal search as a potential for Google the company to prop up their new sub business unfairly above an independent company like Kayak. I think the key here is that it goes beyond organic search to offering vertical search with an option to act as a travel booking agent.

The consumer harm in this case comes from Google promoting their own booking service above Kayak, and potentially leading people to spend more on travel then necessary. Perhaps Google's service isn't as good at finding lower prices, but is being artificially risen in ranks to where more people click it over Kayak. Or Google charges a larger booking fee then Kayak for every trip accounting for the price difference.

This is the type of harm the FTC and the EU are looking for. And the FTC found evidence of in their investigation. Eric Schmidt testified Google was not artificially promoting their own other services, even when directly asked about ones the FTC later found were artificially promoted. One in particular is the currently named Google Shopping service. In 2011, the senate judiciary committee was initially questioning Eric Schmidt about this.


It's important to note that it was the FTC and the Senate Judiciary committee that investigated Google and reported on their findings, and not the DOJ. This note at the bottom of the FTC press release is useful:

If Google hadn't worked with the FTC on the agreement, the DOJ would have likely been asked to get involved and file formal charges. Either by request from the FTC, or as a result of the multiple states escalating their own cases into legal action. The DOJ can get involved if the FTC also alerts them to violations of the consent order.

This is probably one of the most relevant examples of what people are complaining about, but my biggest problem is that I still don't know what you could say the alternative is, or where these rich search results should stop.

Searching for "airline price comparisons" on Google, I get nothing but search results for a dozen different price comparison sites, with the top result being Kayak.com. Google flights didn't even appear for me.

Searching for something more specific, like "flight price from new york to miami," now I start seeing rich search results using Google Flights, followed by links to Kayak, etc.

My problem is that I'm wondering how many people are searching that way. I would imagine that most people are going to sites like kayak.com first, then searching for the flights they want.

But even if they aren't, there's cases where I would be pissed if I didn't get the rich search results that I get from Google. If I search for a business in my town, I'm expecting to see a map and the phone number. What's the alternative? Should Google remove that map and only provide links? Then I find the service less useful. Would Microsoft have to do the same, given that they offer the exact same information on their search engine?

My problem is that in all this discussion, I've only seen a focus on the hypothetical impact to Google's competitors. I've never seen anyone talking about what this all means for consumers. I would not feel well-served if Google was forced to change how their products worked just because people liked them more.

Besides, who really uses Google Shopping?

Fun fact: today I spoke with a client of mine about Chrome and Internet Explorer for about 30 minutes, but as soon as I referred to one of them as his "browser," he asked me "what's a browser?" If he had seen that ballot he would have had no idea what he was deciding on, and probably would have gone with the most familiar logo, which most likely would have been the big blue e.

I have had dozens of clients ask me what a browser was.

I am referring to the EU Commission ruling in 2009, which, again, is not related to the US case you mentioned. 2009 EU Case was not a US case.

Also, Tom, not to be picky, but the case you mentioned and linked does not state that "IE harmed competition", which means little. It is a browser, not a company. Unless you mean its existence harms competion (which means MS can't create a browser), that means nothing.

The case you mention does not even state that IE being bundled with Windows (dominant) harmed competition.

It states instead that Microsoft operated illegally by harming competition (both technically and in other ways) in order to favor IE (and other products) versus Netscape (and other products).
It states this in the section pertaining and mentioning Internet Explorer.

Now, as you can see, this is precisely what I have mentioned in my previous emails and above. I agree with this ruling because Microsoft was specifically not disclosing APIs and access to its platform in various ways.

The 2009 case in EU has completely different philosophical grounds, it is about a different fact still pertaining IE, and I disagree with that ruling, in principle - which is possibly more important to me, as it shows deep difference in core values about economy and freedom - and practically - as it shows to me that the EU commission found a solution which I find naive and quite meaningless technically.




Right. Now, if the EU Commission accused Google of illegally advertising Chrome on its homepage >because of it's dominant position<, forcing it to advertise for free a number of existing browsers on the marked, I'd be in a very similar disagreement.

Please, understand that is very different from an hypothetical case where Google >prevents< other browsers to advertise on their home page.




If that is the case, than I agree with the investigation. Please see my original email on this. While I have not looked at the details about this specific case, I suspect, however, that the EU Commission is going beyond this.



Right, or, I'd personally be perfectly fine if Google also acted as a travel booking search agent, provided that in such market it does not prevent technically others from competing, or, in other words, provided it does not place a barrier to entry based on anything else than quality of the service offered (whether they consist of technology aimed at harming competitors, refusal to sign contracts, corrupting a politicians, sending mob to threaten competitors, or whatever you may think of).



And that is precisely the point: unfortunately, no, that is not the type of harm the EU looked for in the IE case in 2009 that lead to ballot screen.

I just found out that Wikipedia has a nice summary of the many issues Microsoft has with the EU Commission.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp_v_Commission

Now, as you can see there, most of the issues go way back in time, and they are ALL related to Microsoft preventing competition by not disclosing relevant tech info to competitors. I won't get into them. While in principle I agree, as you dive into specifics situation is a bit more complex than that and there I also find differences with what generally happens int he US.
But then, at the end, you find among the other cases, the IMO infamous IE / Ballot screen thing.
Citing wikipedia:
"In January 2009, the European Commission announced it would investigate the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows operating systems from Microsoft, saying "Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice."[29][30] "
It is the fact itself that IE is in Windows that is wrong, in the minds of EU commissioners.
This is something I disagree completely with, that I fight to its core, honestly.
I disagree so much with it, I even question if there's any good intent in that, or just the desire of the EU commissioners to just matter.

Tom, so I've been reading a coupe of articles about current EU case against Google. I may have not read everything and so I am open to change my opinion on this. But, so far this looks like the IE case.

I am reading that the EU commission claims that the fact that the Google is both a universal search engine and a vertical one is, per se, bad, as it harms competition. How and why, I could not find anywhere.

_IF_ this is the case, I am in strong disagreement, in principle and therefore in practice, with the EU Commission.


If they are saying that Google used the above to prevent specific competitors to compete, then I agree they investigate and rule against Google IF found guilty.
Preventing kayak from competing, for example, means that Google does not make technology available to Kayak (APIs, or info of other sorts) to allow them to show a button to reserve a ticket in Google results page, for example. It is something factual and measurable. And completely - completely - different than saying Google can't be both universal and vertical (o that MS can' put a browser in their OS).

I think we're all missing the elephant in the room here, which is how cruel it is for kayak.com to sit on that domain name, when a perfectly good kayak maker could be using it.