Re:EU hits Google with second antitrust charge
by millstone on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @04:02PM
(#11537308)
The issue is not what customers can do, it is what OEMs can do. OEMs cannot disable all that on Android and use other services and apps.
> The MS situation was similar in case that no-one used Windows just to use Internet Explorer
Microsoft did a lot of shady stuff. One example is the "per processor" licensing that said, if you ship Windows on one computer, you have to pay Microsoft a royalty for all computers you sell, even the ones that don't run Windows. That's obviously very anti-competitive.
Google seems to be doing something roughly analogous with its requirement that if you ship a Google service, you can't also ship a different, separate product with your own changes. They are trying to use their leverage to prevent competition.
> The MS situation was similar in case that no-one used Windows just to use Internet Explorer
Microsoft did a lot of shady stuff. One example is the "per processor" licensing that said, if you ship Windows on one computer, you have to pay Microsoft a royalty for all computers you sell, even the ones that don't run Windows. That's obviously very anti-competitive.
Google seems to be doing something roughly analogous with its requirement that if you ship a Google service, you can't also ship a different, separate product with your own changes. They are trying to use their leverage to prevent competition.