[HN Gopher] Google Is Appealing a $5B Antitrust Fine in the EU
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       Google Is Appealing a $5B Antitrust Fine in the EU
        
       Author : rolph
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2021-09-27 17:52 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
        
       | KptMarchewa wrote:
       | Why are they able to appeal stuff three years later?
        
         | cblackthornekc wrote:
         | I'm going to guess an ongoing pandemic might have delayed it
         | just a bit
        
         | jsnell wrote:
         | I think they appealed three years ago, and it is only now in
         | court?
         | 
         | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-alphabet-inc-antitrust...
        
       | ct0 wrote:
       | Of course they are. Water is wet.
        
         | rasz wrote:
         | Its a no brainer. Intel still hasnt paid 1B fine for bribing
         | vendors to stop buying AMD products.
        
       | yellow_lead wrote:
       | Even if you thought you couldn't win, the interest is so high on
       | a $5B fine, you want to delay payment as long as possible.
        
       | ksec wrote:
       | That is sort of strange. Part of the reason why Google is able to
       | provide Android for free is that they monetise it via its
       | services bundled with Android.
       | 
       | So I guess Google has to charge for Android as an OS instead?
        
         | kergonath wrote:
         | "But it's the only way to make it free" is no excuse when
         | you've been found to have done something illegal. If your
         | business is found to be against the law, then it is on you to
         | get a better one.
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | If they don't think they can make Android profitable without
         | abusing their position, they can always choose to stop offering
         | it. I'm sure something better will take its place.
        
         | dathinab wrote:
         | But you don't get Android from google, you get a fork from the
         | vendor which produced the phone you bought.
         | 
         | So you are paying (in many ways) for companies you payed
         | getting it for free...
         | 
         | And maybe the cheapest level of phones would get more
         | expensive.
         | 
         | But for many (most) Android phones (sold in the EU) the price
         | increase if Android isn't free should be fairly small.
         | (Especially given that google still gets a lot of other
         | benefits from people using Android, I mean e.g. Google Play is
         | still the default App store.)
        
           | ksec wrote:
           | >you get a fork from the vendor which produced the phone you
           | bought.
           | 
           | Well yes. But the vendor get its fork from Google,
           | particularly speaking.
           | 
           | From my understanding, vendor are perfectly free to take
           | Android source code and make their own OS . But if you want
           | all the extra provided by Google Android ( the OS ), you have
           | to include all the bundled Software. The current ruling would
           | be like asking Windows to not bundle Email and Browser.
           | 
           | This is similar to the Microsoft ruling where it has to
           | provide a Windows OS that allows multiple Browser options
           | during setup.
           | 
           | Generally speaking EUR doesn't like freemium model. That is
           | why the suggestion of charging for Android. I read it as EU
           | having problem with Google providing Android ( OS ) for free
           | and stifles competition from all of its bundled services.
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-27 23:02 UTC)