Google Offers Europeans Choice To Download Rival Web Browser (bloomberg.com) 52
Google said today it will start giving European Union smartphone users a choice of browsers and search apps on its Android operating system, in changes designed to comply with an EU antitrust ruling. From a report: Starting Thursday and following a software update, users in the EU opening Google's mobile app store will be presented with a choice of alternatives to Google search and Chrome. The Alphabet unit said options will vary by market, but Microsoft's Bing and Norway's Opera are notable competitors in the European search and browser market respectively.
The changes could help Google avoid additional fines after being scrutinized by the EU for almost a decade. The European Commission, the bloc's antitrust body, last year fined Google $4.8 billion for strong-arming device makers into pre-installing its Google search and Chrome browser, giving it a leg up because users are unlikely to look for alternatives if a default is already preloaded. The EU ordered Google to change that behavior and threatened additional fines if it failed to comply. In a statement, FairSearch, a group that includes Czech search engine Seznam.cz and Oracle, rejected the changes as insufficient. "It does nothing to correct the central problem that Google apps will remain the default on all Android devices," the group said. FairSearch filed one of the first complaints to the EU on Android.
The changes could help Google avoid additional fines after being scrutinized by the EU for almost a decade. The European Commission, the bloc's antitrust body, last year fined Google $4.8 billion for strong-arming device makers into pre-installing its Google search and Chrome browser, giving it a leg up because users are unlikely to look for alternatives if a default is already preloaded. The EU ordered Google to change that behavior and threatened additional fines if it failed to comply. In a statement, FairSearch, a group that includes Czech search engine Seznam.cz and Oracle, rejected the changes as insufficient. "It does nothing to correct the central problem that Google apps will remain the default on all Android devices," the group said. FairSearch filed one of the first complaints to the EU on Android.
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Opera = Chrome.
Opera uses the Chrome engine.* It has some features that are not the same as Chrome or not found in Chrome.
* as even MS Edge now does.
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This is nothing but extortion by the EU.
This is the EU using their government power correctly, which is to say, to prevent a company with market dominence from monopolistic behavior: that is, antitrust action.
Note: Other carriers are welcome to use their own app stores.
If Google owns the store, they should not own the products, and absolutely should not be allowed from using that power promote their product above others.
This is how monopolies squeeze competition out of the market. It is entirely correct for the EU to hammer down on it. Hard.
Read Wealth of Nations. Not the part everybody quotes, but the pa
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Is iOS Next? (Score:2)
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Since Apple does the same thing with Safari on iOS, I wonder if the EU will go after them next.
After careful investigation it was found that Apple users deserve to have no choice.
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Well, for starters, that's true (it's around 20% or so versus Android).
The other thing is that Google mandates that Chrome be default browser on Android. So it doesn't matter what Android phone you buy, Google has forced your hand.
That's the real crux of the problem - and it was the basis of several complaints that Google mandates certain things if you want their app store.
So even if an OEM wanted to put Mozilla f
Here ya go! (Score:4, Funny)
It's a zip file with Mosaic preconfigured to use altavista
I already have Android with Firefox & DuckDuck (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I already have Android with Firefox & DuckD (Score:5, Informative)
I don't understand what is being proposed here. I have a bog standard Android phone and have already installed Firefox and I also use DuckDuckGo as my search engine. Maybe I can't uninstall Google Chrome, but I don't have to use it. So what am I missing in this announcement?
You are missing that users will now be actively offered a choice.
Yes, they had a choice before, if they knew it and could figure out how to do it. Or they could just accept the easy defaults and be all Google-ized without even thinking.
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The did it purely to steal money from a US company.
Or Google could just have complied with the rules from the start.
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If the rule doesn't exist unless you have a huge marketshare (the reason I keep hearing that Apple doesn't have to bundle other software), then it wasn't the rule "from the start".
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and have already installed
No one expects you, someone who has installed something else to understand the market power of "defaults".
How is iOS crippled? It has ad blockers. (Score:2)
not the crippled version which Apple requires, completely lacking in the ability to fight advertising and tracking.
That is incorrect, you can have ad blockers on iOS - they are installed at the system level.
Why can't we have nice things ... (Score:2)
... like this in America?
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Our government here in America is all but entirely controlled by corporations like Google, which is in turn because typical Americans are dumbfucks who think they have democracy, so they don't fight for it.
Why any non-wealthy person on "either" side can look at the government and think it's trying to serve them is beyond me, but maybe that's because I've got two neurons to rub together.
Meanwhile, former Google CEO is full of Schmidt (Score:2)
"Google said today it will start giving European Union smartphone users a choice of browsers and search apps on its Android operating system, in changes designed to comply with an EU antitrust ruling [...]"
Meanwhile, in other unrelated news:
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a new interview rejected the notion that [governments have] a role to play in regulating big tech companies [...] "It's generally better to let the tech companies do these things[.]"
So, Eric, you're saying Google would have given mobile
We need a choice of browser engines (Score:2)