Clowns to the left to me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with EU: Google faces antitrust war with America, China
(2020/10/01)
- Reference: 1601521122
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/10/01/google_antitrust_us_china/
- Source link:
Google is about to face an onslaught of antitrust artillery from both the United States' Department of Justice and China’s State Administration for Market Regulation, all while feeling the squeeze from Europe.
Uncle Sam has not been on friendly terms with big tech [1]lately . Last year, the Dept of Justice [2]launched a monopoly abuse probe, examining how a lack of oversight may have led to dominant tech corporations stifling competition in areas from e-commerce to mobile apps and social media.
DuckDuckGo cries fowl after being expunged from Google's Android search preferences menu for most of Europe [3]READ MORE
And now, according to Reuters, the department could file a lawsuit against Google as early as [4]next week , which will focus on the web goliath's sprawling search operation. The US government's legal eagles will accuse Google of screwing "rivals such as Microsoft’s Bing by depriving them of the data about users and user preferences that they need to improve and to advertise to people," the news wire reported.
The US government is also said to be looking into complaints that Google unfairly promotes its own services and products over rivals in what is the planet's biggest search engine, an issue that has long worried regulators worldwide.
And don't forget: last year the European Union [5]fined Google €1.49bn ($1.75bn) for restricting competition in search advertising. In Europe, Google is required to offer four search engine options on Android phones, one of which is always Google. The other three are open for auction, meaning that smaller search engines like [6]DuckDuckGo can’t compete and are left out. “This auction remedy, proposed by Google, was constructed to make Google money, not to provide meaningful consumer choice," the privacy-focused DDG [7]said .
The Middle Kingdom's also mad
China, meanwhile, is [8]reportedly considering going after Google's Android operating system at the request of Huawei. The Chinese telecoms hardware giant was said to have griped to the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), China’s market watchdog, that Google "leveraged the dominance of its Android mobile operating system to stifle competition," we're told.
The move comes amid a string of policy changes emitted by the Trump administration to stop Chinese manufacturers from getting their hands on American technology. Huawei was placed on the US Department of Commerce’s entity list to block it from conducting business with and obtaining hardware and software components from stateside organization.
That forced Google to [9]yank its Play Store and mobile services code from future Huawei handsets in May following an [10]executive order from President Trump. Android apps rely on that Google-built framework, so the move threatened to knacker the software ecosystem for next-gen Huawei's handhelds.
“This means that Google is prohibited from working with Huawei on new device models or providing Google’s apps including Gmail, Maps, YouTube, the Play Store and others for preload or download on these devices,” Google [11]said earlier.
Now Huawei has [12]prepped its own open-source operating system to replace Android in its products.
Google, the Department of Justice, and Huawei were not available for comment. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/30/apple_amazon_facebook_congress/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/04/house_judiciary_committee_antitrust/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/googles_android_search_duckduckgo/
[4] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tech-antitrust-google-idUSKBN26K3SR
[5] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_1770
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/googles_android_search_duckduckgo/
[7] https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-auctions/
[8] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-china-huawei-tech-exclusive-idUSKBN26L1OH
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/20/google_pulls_play_and_other_services_from_huawei/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/15/president_trump_huawei_emergency_ban/
[11] https://support.google.com/android/thread/29434011?hl=en
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/10/go_huawei_android_chinese_telco/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Uncle Sam has not been on friendly terms with big tech [1]lately . Last year, the Dept of Justice [2]launched a monopoly abuse probe, examining how a lack of oversight may have led to dominant tech corporations stifling competition in areas from e-commerce to mobile apps and social media.
DuckDuckGo cries fowl after being expunged from Google's Android search preferences menu for most of Europe [3]READ MORE
And now, according to Reuters, the department could file a lawsuit against Google as early as [4]next week , which will focus on the web goliath's sprawling search operation. The US government's legal eagles will accuse Google of screwing "rivals such as Microsoft’s Bing by depriving them of the data about users and user preferences that they need to improve and to advertise to people," the news wire reported.
The US government is also said to be looking into complaints that Google unfairly promotes its own services and products over rivals in what is the planet's biggest search engine, an issue that has long worried regulators worldwide.
And don't forget: last year the European Union [5]fined Google €1.49bn ($1.75bn) for restricting competition in search advertising. In Europe, Google is required to offer four search engine options on Android phones, one of which is always Google. The other three are open for auction, meaning that smaller search engines like [6]DuckDuckGo can’t compete and are left out. “This auction remedy, proposed by Google, was constructed to make Google money, not to provide meaningful consumer choice," the privacy-focused DDG [7]said .
The Middle Kingdom's also mad
China, meanwhile, is [8]reportedly considering going after Google's Android operating system at the request of Huawei. The Chinese telecoms hardware giant was said to have griped to the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), China’s market watchdog, that Google "leveraged the dominance of its Android mobile operating system to stifle competition," we're told.
The move comes amid a string of policy changes emitted by the Trump administration to stop Chinese manufacturers from getting their hands on American technology. Huawei was placed on the US Department of Commerce’s entity list to block it from conducting business with and obtaining hardware and software components from stateside organization.
That forced Google to [9]yank its Play Store and mobile services code from future Huawei handsets in May following an [10]executive order from President Trump. Android apps rely on that Google-built framework, so the move threatened to knacker the software ecosystem for next-gen Huawei's handhelds.
“This means that Google is prohibited from working with Huawei on new device models or providing Google’s apps including Gmail, Maps, YouTube, the Play Store and others for preload or download on these devices,” Google [11]said earlier.
Now Huawei has [12]prepped its own open-source operating system to replace Android in its products.
Google, the Department of Justice, and Huawei were not available for comment. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/30/apple_amazon_facebook_congress/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/04/house_judiciary_committee_antitrust/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/googles_android_search_duckduckgo/
[4] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tech-antitrust-google-idUSKBN26K3SR
[5] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_1770
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/googles_android_search_duckduckgo/
[7] https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-auctions/
[8] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-china-huawei-tech-exclusive-idUSKBN26L1OH
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/20/google_pulls_play_and_other_services_from_huawei/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/15/president_trump_huawei_emergency_ban/
[11] https://support.google.com/android/thread/29434011?hl=en
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/10/go_huawei_android_chinese_telco/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
If Huawei will avoid doing their own slurp then screw android
Huawei make phones and whilst currently they do have their own slurp it doesn't seem quite as bad as google's, if they commited to zero slurp then Android will be in real trouble and thus so will the US intelligence agencies if new phones do not have their backdoors and spyware.
The existing cases against google in the US do not actually seem to have much in the way of teeth or prospects, more like lets make it seem that the US Gov is doing something when in reality what they are critisizing google for what is common practice for most of the US companies and so the cases will fail in the long run.
As to access to apps if huawei continue with their policy of giving the user control of what apps can access then I would say that Android is dead in the water and the playstore an anachronism, what good things about the OS been eroded and massively overshadowed by the ever increasing invasion of privacy for using the OS.
People are already dodging google search and ads if they loose android what do they have left? services that noone wants to use and hence no adversting since noone will see it
They should ahev stuck with "do no evil"