Google Found Guilty of ‘Abusing Dominant Market Position’ in Russia
wsj.comGNU Emacs also abuses its dominant position in the editor market by shipping all this bundled Lisp code.
Over twenty years ago I was a making killing, hand over fist, selling a Usenet news reading add-on for Emacs. Then those anti-trust bastards included some Lisp code which does that, and I went down the tubes.
I mean, what gave them the right, you know?
It's as if not only did they disrespect my sense of entitlement, but it's like they didn't even see it, in spite of its monstrous size.
I'm assuming this is a sarcastic post.
It's an interesting thought experiment to extrapolate antitrust ideas onto free software.
If Linux grew big enough could it attract antitrust lawsuits despite not being the product of any single company?
My first impression was to draw the line at organizations that make money, but that leaves the possibility for free software growing so big as to hinder progress, which isn't necessarily beneficial for the community either.
Discuss(?)
> I'm assuming this is a sarcastic post.
More like satirical.
I just returned to this tab 56 minutes after the fact, and wanted to delete the comment, but when I clicked the delete link, "1 point" flipped to "13 points". :)
My point is, why is something like GNU Emacs or GNU/Linux above anti-trust with regard to bundling? Suppose that GNU/Linux had only one distribution, and it was so popular that it was on 99% of the world's desktops. There wouldn't be any anti-trust hoopla regarding that distribution having a preferred web browser, no matter how deeply integrated.
Morally, the users of this platform would be just as locked in as users of Windows and IE. (Or Google Android and some Google Service app or what have you).
Anti-trust somehow only picks targets from which it can squeeze money. That's what it's about, not any morality of the situation or what is good for consumers. Those are just pretexts.
(The very fact that Russia is eagerly aping this concept speaks volumes).
Auntie Ayn on anti-trust laws: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/antitrust_laws.html
>Suppose that GNU/Linux had only one distribution, and it was so popular that it was on 99% of the world's desktops. There wouldn't be any anti-trust hoopla regarding that distribution having a preferred web browser, no matter how deeply integrated.
Assuming that in this alternate world GNU/Linux wasn't malleable (either because its not open source or for some other reason I am not able to think of). I think there would be anti-trust "hoopla".
For example... Think of the negative response everyone had back when ubuntu started sending amazon data... I changed distros. I don't think just because a system is based in GNU/Linux means that it is automatically sainted.
>Suppose that GNU/Linux had only one distribution
This is like saying "suppose the US was a totalitarian dictatorship". It might be an interesting thought experiment, but it ignores reality to the point of being utterly useless in any practical sense. GNU/Linux is based around the idea of free software, which by it's very definition make it impossible to restrict it to one distribution. (This is not to say that the US will never become a totalitarian dictatorship, but rather that despite the huge flaws of the US political system, the features of totalitarianism are antithetical to the ideological basis of the current US political system.)
>Anti-trust somehow only picks targets from which it can squeeze money. That's what it's about, not any morality of the situation or what is good for consumers. Those are just pretexts.
Even if you assume there is a correlation between anti-trust litigation and the resources of the companies exposed to this kind of litigation, that alone does not prove malice on the part of the government. The actual reason anti-trust litigation hits companies with money is that it's designed to fight monopolies . How many monopolies are going bankrupt, and how many of those who do, need government intervention to limit their damage on the overall economy...?
>The very fact that Russia is eagerly aping this concept speaks volumes.
It really doesn't. Russia is a totalitarian dictatorship, and has been since before the October revolution. That they're jumping on western concepts and adapting them to suit their need of political control doesn't say anything about the value of the ideas they're corrupting.
>Auntie Ayn on anti-trust laws: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/antitrust_laws.html
Let's consider a quote from your link: "Under the Antitrust laws, a man becomes a criminal from the moment he goes into business, no matter what he does." This is trivially false since companies (i.e. people who have gone into business) have been cleared of antitrust charges. It's also an an excellent example of Ayn Rand's simplistic, and in my opinion, childish excuse for proper reasoning and logic. (I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to refute the rest of Ayn Rand's quotes in the article, in the hopes that it might cure some people of their objectivism.)
I think the difference is that no one is really making money off desktop Linux. How can you argue monopoly when your "competitor" isn't even a business?
Yes, I know there are commercial Linux distributions, but they're almost exclusively targeted towards corporate and server use.
Looking at antitrust law I can't find a single phrase that would cover a scenario with free software. Could the linux project sell products at a loss? The linux project do not actually sell anything beyond brand merchandise (and they got state approved monopoly on that). People have argued (but never in court) that giving away software is price dumping but since you don't incur a marginal loss it do not match any current law that I have seen.
Can the linux project do exclusive dealing? I guess one could argue that the linux project did buy exclusively buy from BitKeeper, but defining that as an "supplier" seems to stretch the definition beyond nonrecognition.
Free software and open source licenses specifically forbids Refusal to deal, price fixing, and tied offering. You can't violate the law here without also infringing people's copyright.
Can linux project divide territories with other kernel projects? In theory they could do so if they offered support contracts but not by simply producing software. What would define a territory in the context of publicly offering free software to anyone?
> that leaves the possibility for free software growing so big as to hinder progress
How would that happen, exactly? Particularly with the GPL. If an author (company or otherwise) distributes their work, they're required to also provide the source for that work.
Thus, no author distributes their GPL'd software with an expectation that they will make a profit by keeping others from using that code.
So whether the main project continues to use their code or replaces it with other code of comparable functionality is irrelevant. In fact, most entities who buy into Linux do so (in part) to offload the maintenance expenses associated with that code base. So if the community picks it up, win. If the community does not, you 'break even' as you're in the same position of maintaining the code base internally as you would would have been if you'd not open sourced it in the first place.
> How would that happen, exactly? Particularly with the GPL. If an author (company or otherwise) distributes their work, they're required to also provide the source for that work.
How that could happen is: Imagine in a world in which a free, open-source operating system is immensely popular, installed on most desktops, devices, servers and embedded systems. Suppose the system's distro ships bundled with some applications (also perfectly open-sourced).
If it is difficult to compete with those applications, how does it matter that they are open source?
Sure, you can make a fork of the distro which is unbundled, making it easier to replace appliactions. But, oops, hardware vendors don't want to ship the forked distro for whatever reasons. They say, "we install the image that 99% of the world uses. We don't charge anything extra; if you want something else, wipe the HD/flash and do a complete reinstall."
In this hypothetical world, would governments step in with anti-trust litigation? (Against what?)
For extra confusion points, let's add signing: suppose you can't even add an application to the distro if it doesn't have an approved signature from the upstream. (Isn't that essesentially Firefox started with add-ons?)
> Sure, you can make a fork of the distro which is unbundled, making it easier to replace appliactions. But, oops, hardware vendors don't want to ship the forked distro for whatever reasons.
Looks like that hardware market is not very competitive.
Or maybe it's so competitive, working on such thin margins, that they don't want to put resources into forked distros.
> It's an interesting thought experiment to extrapolate antitrust ideas onto free software.
But this is about Google.
Exactly, this isn't about Android, the open source OS, this is about the Play Store, Google's proprietary service, and the secretive contracts Google mandates surrounding it.
Funny you should mention gnu emacs and that time frame, because those were the years when RMS was getting really testy at the existence of lucid emacs / xemacs.
The crux of the article:
Google said in February that device makers “are free to install the apps
they choose, and consumers always have complete control over the apps on
their devices.”
Several device manufacturers that pre-install Yandex apps notified the
company in 2014 that they were “no longer able to pre-install Yandex
services,” such as Yandex’s search and map apps on Google’s Android devices,
prompting Yandex to make a complaint to the antitrust authorities. [1]
In order to install Google Play on their devices, device manufacturers are
required to preinstall the entire suite of Google GMS services, and set
Google as the default search. In addition to that, device manufacturers are
increasingly prohibited from installing any services from Google’s
competitors on their devices… The openness of Android is now in a thing of
the past.” [Yandex' claim] [2]
[2] http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/18/yandex-google-russia-antitr...
Sounds like some monopolization to me. Google can't be trusted to tell the truth here anymore than the US govt can be trusted to tell the truth about spying. There is absolutely zero incentive to admit to wrongdoing. My only question is why can't we go after Microsoft for locking down hardware in the same way.
> My only question is why can't we go after Microsoft for locking down hardware in the same way.
Microsoft's hardware (e.g. Surface Pro) is less locked down than the competition's version of the same (e.g. iPad). Why must ever topic devolve into Microsoft bashing?
I should clarify that here I'm not talking about Microsoft's hardware like the Surface. I'm talking about being able to buy a computer from a manufacturer without having to pay $99 for an installation of Microsoft Windows that I explicitly do not want. Some effort was made to stop this practice (of MS paying manufacturers not to offer machines without Windows), but it clearly didn't go very far in solving the problem. Either you're going to pay for a copy of MS Windows, or you're going to build your own machine (or pay about as much as Apple hardware costs from "specialty" hardware retailers). And to answer your question, I bring this up because I find it difficult to point fingers at Google for the same behavior without bringing up an example of a company that is flatly getting away with murder.
> I'm talking about being able to buy a computer from a manufacturer without having to pay $99 for an installation of Microsoft Windows that I explicitly do not want.
You can. You are not limited to specialty outfits as well, nor are you required to pay a lot for it, or any of the other numerous criteria you try to add on as well. Being able to buy a PC without paying for Windows or paying for an Apple product is incredibly easy for the average person today.
No, you are shoehorned into buying a very specific model. It should be no problem whatsoever to choose any model on that site, and select "Ubuntu" for the OS, but you can't. If you go and look (and here I mean actually go and look[0]), the vast majority of machines that you can buy do not have the option to not pay for a Windows license. The choice you get is "Windows 8.1 or Windows 10".
that is a choice Dell has made based of customer demand, sales and is no longer forced by MS to do so. MS tried this in 90s and it was major issue in the antitrust investigation
... And clearly today, as well.
Dell actually has multiple lines of their products that they sell with officially supported Ubuntu now. And you don't pay for the Windows license, so you save a few bucks.
Protectionist as this move indoubtedly is, it seems as though the allegation is actually true.
basically deja vu of MS vs. Netscape and other independent software providers of 199x. For the last decade Google was basically replaying the MS scenario.
But really, it's 'Abusing Dominant Market Position without Permission.'
Absolutely this. In Russia especially, it's all about getting permission for this kind of behavior.
I think it's a bit more than that. I suspect it's about not having uncontrolled (by Russia) sources of information for the Russian people.
it's all about paying the right people to get permission.
Google seems to be singled out and especially targeted by these antitrust allegation and investigations, I mean in the larger sense not just here where it's mostly a protectionist outcome as the fact that they technically don't have a "dominant market position" at ~50% market share is the least of it.
I'm curious How a ruling like that gels with the fact that on an iPhone (the other half of the market) all services and apps are dictated by Apple and can not be altered, while on Android not only they can be but the whole OS is free, Yandex could have commissioned their own hardware like many others do and they curiously haven't complained about Apple.
Same goes for the search allegation,the argument there is that Google should feature results from other search engines on their own site! Which is mind Boggling, no one is convinced Facebook or twitter or anyone should include content from other website but somehow Google is different. Google isn't the network layer that one must go through it to interact with the web, they are no "gatekeeper" not technically or metaphorically yet somehow politicians are convinced they are.
This seems like field distortion to me that somehow regulator were sold on to (even excluding this Russian example).
It's about dominant position. Having the sort of stifling monopoly that Google has opens it up to additional regulation, just like Microsoft was before it. Apple is a niche market still, to this day, and isn't under as much scrutiny.
First the term "stifling monopoly" is loaded, and they definitely don't have it in Russia. 2nd they can't have a "stifling monopoly" since they are just another node on the graph, you don't need them to "internet", there is always another site, another app.
See my response to other commenter on parent comment.
But, Google isn't the dominant Search engine in Russia. Yandex is.
It's not a search monopoly, it's an Android monopoly. And they're abusing that monopoly to increase their market share in search.
You're looking at the wrong monopoly!
They cant have a monopoly on their own product, thats ludicrous.
'apple has a monopoly on the iphone'
'GM has a monopoly on cadillac'
'BMW has a monopoly on the 3-series'
Of course they have a 'monopoly' on android, android is their product. Android has captured 64%[0] of the smartphone market in russia, this is again not a monopoly. A monopoly would capture 100% of the market, thats the definition of a monopoly.
I'm eager to hear what market Google has captured 100% of, because its not search or smartphones
[0]http://www.statista.com/statistics/262174/market-share-held-...
The definition of a monopoly is not capturing 100% of the market.
Previous discussion, from when the probe began: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9068334
The jurisdiction bias aside, Google has been indeed busy deploying an array of devices to disguise the AdWords monopoly behind an alphabetical soup of projects and products. The more your hear about self-driving cars, the less attention you're paying to Paid Clicks market share.
Should we take what the Russian goverment says at face value, or is this part of a trend in Russian policy to turn away from the West? These are the same guys trying to ban Reddit and Wikipedia.
Yes, and the White House are the same guys running planting spyware in the American *ware products used around the world at unprecedented scale. Savvy?
USA government spying, therefore USA software bad is not an informed argument. Choose between Russian or US hegemony and society.
Let's see Yandex can indeed fork Android and deliver a device in Russia without Google apps..what anitrust issue here? Maybe Yandex anticompetitive desires?
Google makes it impossible for a single manufacturer to ship both google services android and yandex flavor adroid.
Or any other custom android; just ask Samsung, Google pressurized them to drop their own ecosystem.
This is anticompetitive if you ask me.
Really? Last time I checked my Samsung tablet I could still go to the Samsung app store to install apps. Where is this pressure you speak of that made the Samsung store app go away?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9068334
"It's not just pressure. They outright cut you off. You cannot ship Google Androids and non-Google Androids. It's part of the MARA."
I think just having your own store is okay as long as you don't bundle their competitors and don't exclude google play and you are big enough to put some weight.
Can someone post a non-paywall link?
I got around it just by Googling a good chunk of the URL -- google-found-guilty-of-abusing-dominant-market-position-in-russia -- and clicking on the top result. WSJ doesn't paywall traffic coming from Google apparently...
People acting like this is a "Russia against the West" thing are ignoring the fact that the EU, India, Brazil, and others are all conducting similar investigations, which are likely to have the same result.
And the US even found merit to investigate Google, before quietly burying the case.
Ten to one that this is a backdoor geopolitical jab at the US.
The Russians are always trying to create and solidify a US-free sphere of influence. That goes for US companies, US NGOs, you name it.
And how much has 'Yandex', whatever that is, contributed to Android? Android exists and is relatively free (as in beer and speech) because it drives traffic to Google. If you don't like it, write your own mobile operating system from scratch (good luck).
Edit: actually, they'd only need their own app store if I understand the terms correctly.
"'Yandex', whatever that is" - Yandex is a $10B public company, a legitimate innovator and the top internet player in Russia. Ever heard of that country, or is it yet another "whatever that is" for you?
If they were so great they wouldn't have to force themselves onto consumers by bundling their crapware into carrier sponsored phones.
Not to mention $10B is probably less than the amount Google alone has spent developing and promoting Android. Please explain how their direct competitor should be entitled to piggy back on that work for free.
Edit: apparently they even have their own 'Yandex Browser' based on Chromium. Shameless.
Ignoring other things, there is no shame in forking and developing an Open Source project on one's own (license permitting, which the Chromium's BSD license does). That's the whole purpose of Open Source projects.
It's legal, sure, but it's shameless and wrong to take an open source project built by your competitor, change the branding to yours, bundle it with crapware, and pretend you're innovating.
That's what I was saying. Open source projects are _meant to be_ forked and rebranded. There is nothing to be ashamed of here, license granting.
"Please explain how their direct competitor should be entitled to piggy back on that work"
Nobody forced Google to release Android under open licenses and by doing so they certainly didn't get green light to abuse monopoly.
"I will open source my software and see that it only does me good" - that's not how it works.
Sure, Android was released under open licenses and Yandex is free to use it.
However, Play Store is not open source or released under an open license so if you want to use Android to spread your crapware you don't get to complain that Google doesn't want to license you their app store. They have no moral ground to stand on.
"you don't get to complain that Google doesn't want to license you their app store"
Did they?
Despite being open source, Google does not really accept submissions of code from third parties. Yandex does in fact have their own app store, but many apps are only published on the Google Play Store.
This is untrue. Android has has many contributions from third parties. Samsung, Sony, LG, etc have all contributed to the AOSP project.
> Despite being open source, Google does not really accept submissions of code from third parties.
Source for this?
Google is not even the most popular search engine in Russia. This is why Russian courts are commonly considered a running joke.
or your reading comprehension is very poor, it is about Android monopoly(86%) being abused to promote search.
Well, I wasn't able to read the entire article since it's behind the paywall, but I'd be surprised if Android market share is this high in Russia. iPhones are quite popular here as well.
Whatever suspicions I have about the process by which this decision was made, it seems in principle like a sane ruling that'll improve the openness of the Android platform.
Filled in February 2015 and ruled in September 2015? Russian justice is very fast, and the results are really shocking and surprising
This is a country whose justice system has a 99% conviction rate, and explains that this is a testament to their exemplary investigational work.
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/europe/russias-99-convi...
the main theme in Russia today is "replacing of imported goods and services with domestic ones". The strategy consists of 3 stages:
1. prohibit, bash, etc... foreign goods and services
2. ...
3. enjoy quality replacement by domestic manufacturers and providers.
right now the stage 1 is at full swing.
2. should read ??? because 3. will never happen (see China).
"..." vs. "???" :) well, it is kind of Freudian slip here - i'm a Russian and i understand what is happening there, and "???" would mean at least minimum of constructive approach, like at least recognition of real situation, recognition that there is something unclear yet, whereis in Russian mentality there is no question, there is no constructive thinking ahead, and what we take for "thinking ahead" is actually "dreaming". And that's what i accidentally placed "..." for :)
This seems like a non sequitur. Care to elaborate more on China's current state and how it's analogous to Russia's future?
China has plenty of replacements but they are nowhere near western equivalents in quality.
They have GLONASS.
like many things there, it will do a fine job if the task at hand is putting nuclear missile into Washington, DC.
It's time for Google to close Android and quit dealing with this bullshit. If you want Android, buy a Google phone with Google Apps and Services and get all your updates directly from Google in a timely manner.
monopoly abuse law will still apply, unless this move substantially remove the marketshare of Android.