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Epic win: Jury decides Google has illegal monopoly in app store fight
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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I believe that Google wanted in-app purchases in Fortnite to go through Play Store so that Google would get 30%. And Epic wanted to setup their own in-app billing and keep it all.
I wonder how that's going to play out with Apple and their monopoly.
A lot of this case hinged on the fact that Google wasn’t treating everyone the same. They had a lot of private details for big companies.
Unless Apple also has secret deals, then this isn’t going to impact them.
Apple wouldn't need to have secret deals. They're running a walled garden over there. You can't side load, and you can't run payments through the app without Apple's approval. That case was about Apple forcing developers not to even talk in the app about the possibility of making a purchase elsewhere, like through their websites. It wasn't a deal, it was Apple strong-arming a developer because they could.
The problem is Google wanted to have what Apple has: a closed ecosystem they can exploit. But they don't have that, at least not to the same degree. Android is not "theirs", even if they've increasingly managed to make the Play Store more inseparable as time has gone by, and getting worse about that all the time.
The most they can do is scare people away from using third party app stores or doing anything with Android they don't approve of, and when it comes to things like Play Integrity and Play Protection, they can punish you for stepping outside their bounds by breaking certain functionality (for having the audacity to want to control your own device).
But they can't outright control anything.
Which is where the deals come in. They're making shady deals to keep Android as their money maker and no one elses.
It's anti-competitive, because to spite Google's efforts, there is an actual opportunity for competition on Android, where as on iPhone, there isn't.
They obviously aren't forcing everyone to use Google billing, but it seems like an antitrust case gains a lot more ground if the accused pays money to quite a bit of people to prevent them from using competitors. That's what's getting Google here, apparently, not real forcing.
On top of what Aatube says about secret unfair deals, Google's Play Store is necessary to run essential social services. In my case I need it to download my banking app and to sign into my university's online studies.
Even something as simple as the Wikipedia app checks to see if Google Play Services is installed and running before it'll let you use it.
Jesus fucking hell. Bet it's propriety.
Need an app to configure good ol' eduroam wifi too, but that one's on F-Droid at least
I'm pretty sure you don't, or at least didn't, it's just much more of a hassle to configure
In theory you don't. In practice I couldn't get working with the 6 page step for step tutorial.
It is almost impossible to get it working without the app.
Ah, well in that case, even better
Phone makers weren’t allowed to include other app stores by default
The Galaxy store app on my phone says otherwise.
The Galaxy Store was a special exception made for Samsung. Generally, Google is pretty "persuasive" about being the only pre-installed app store on the phone.
What's in the contract between Google and Samsung? What exactly are the conditions for including both stores? Can any phone manufacturer get the same deal? What are the requirements for licensing Android? What number of phones on the market don't include Play Store by default? What % of applications are only in Play Store?
Monopoly is not about exceptions but about market control. Until you know what companies have to do to use Android and function on the market you can't really tell if it's monopoly or not.
I have to imagine the contract that Samsung has is "We're Samsung. We basically ARE Korean technology. We can build our own mobile OS if we want to and cut you out entirely. That's a lot of spying on customers you wouldn't get to do. We get our own app store or we walk. Oh look, LG just exited the smart phone market. Do what must be done."
Does the Amazon store, Galaxy Store, AppGallery, Mi GetApps, and AOPPO app market not exist?
Google effectively has a monopoly on the Android app ecosystem and this trial brought to light mountains of evidence that they maintain this through extremely anti-competitive means.