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Epic win: Jury decides Google has illegal monopoly in app store fight
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this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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I don't understand. Android already allows other apps and app stores to be installed, and Epic already has an Android app store you can download and install without issue. What was the argument here?
Edit: tldr: apparently it is not good enough for Epic to have their own app store, they want to have their app in Google's app store and still not pay them money for purchases made in the app.
Google paid off other OEMs to make Google Play the default app store (much like they paid off other companies to be the default search engine) which the court decided was anticompetitive.
I read that but they don't expand at all on how they're doing that. I can buy, download and install games from EGS right now on my Android phone...
I can also buy things from Amazon or any other online store from my browser without Google Play.
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
But that won't necessarily change with this ruling right? Your government doesn't need to change how their apps function because of this.
I really hope you'r wrong on that. Anyways, it's a pleasure to see Google bleeding.
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."
Samsung uses Google's OS (or a fork of it anyway). One of the conditions in the ToS of using that for commercial purposes is that you have to have a certain number of Google apps and services installed and not removable.
Does the Amazon store, Galaxy Store, AppGallery, Mi GetApps, and AOPPO app market not exist?
Are those all on the phone by default?
Edit: I didn't ask if some of them are installed by default, I asked if ALL of them are installed by default.
I can't speak for the others, but the Samsung Galaxy Store does come pre-installed. However, Google paid Samsung for the Play Store to be the default action for app installs. So you get both stores and can pick which one you want.
That's just two options from two big players who cooperate, and only on some devices.
The Samsung galaxy store comes pre-installed on Samsung phones, I haven't heard of it being pre-installed on non-samsung phones.
They are on their perspective devices. ie: Galaxy Store on Samsung, Mi store on Xiaomi, etc.
But they're only default on their respective devices right?
As a reminder, this is the comment you replied to:
As a reminder that was in fact not the comment I replied to.
Yes, depending on where you buy them from. My Samsung came with Galaxy store by default.
Amazon store and Galaxy store are absolutely installed by default on many devices.
So what you're saying is that two of them are installed by default on some phones, but not all of them? Because the comment they replied to was talking about app stores being installed by default, so I'm asking if all those app stores are all installed by default. Because it seems like only some of them sometimes get installed by default on some phones.
I don't know what's on every phone. But I can confirm those 2 are defaults on some devices through personal experience.
And there are also devices without the Play store by default. Amazon products are probably the best example, but they're not the only ones.
Don't get me wrong - Google does some terrible shit. But they're better than pretty much every other major software company on this issue. All the major game consoles and Apple require the use of their stores exclusively. Microsoft requires the Microsoft store to be installed on any modern Windows machine.
Yeah - the Play Store is the de-facto default and by far the most successful on the platform. And yeah - Google likes it that way and encourages it. But so does everyone else. The difference is that Google is the best actor in this area.
Google allows sideloading. They allow other storefronts. They allow other stores to be installed by default by manufacturers. They allow manufacturers to not include the Play Store. And they allow the removal/disabling of the Play Store by users.
Mi app store is, and on Chinese models is the only one.
The jury settled on the relevant geographic market being "worldwide excluding China".
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.
None of those are allowed on the Play Store. And when you try to side load an app, it warns you about it being dangerous.
They're not disallowed on the Play Store. They just choose not to put them there specifically because they don't want to pay Google 30%.
But that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing 3rd party app stores. Computers have had warnings about installing software since the beginning of computers, since no one has vetted whether it is malicious (not that the app stores are immune from malicious apps) so I don't see that as an issue. I would see mandating the removal of those warnings as an issue.
The Play Store doesn't allow other app stores.
"4.5 You may not use Google Play to distribute or make available any Product that has a purpose that facilitates the distribution of software applications and games for use on Android devices outside of Google Play." - Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement
I think "Computers" go back way farther than you're imagining. There was a time when you didn't even install software on computers. You just put in a disk and ran what was on it. We don't even need to go back to when "Computer" was an actual job title. Something that humans (mostly women) did.
...huh? Why would there be an app store inside an app store?
No I was just speaking simply. You know what I meant.
To make it easy to access other app stores of course. You can use one web browser to download another can't you.
Maybe too simply, because I really don't. Windows didn't give any warnings about installing any programs until Windows 10 I think. And even then it's only the truly esoteric and unknown to Microsoft.