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Re:Gab is suing Google for allegedly violating antitrust laws by majormajor on Friday September 15, 2017 @03:55PM (#15260244)
Interesting to consider vertical integration questions in light of this.

Were Google just one of many available app stores for Android, would this be a weaker case? (Or: would railways have been regulated as common carriers were there several parallel railways next to each other, or if the track owner was not the only person operating trains on the line?)

What if OS + Store integration was done at the cell phone manufacturer level? What if they all ended up settling on the same default store (say, Google's?)? Would it depend on why they had selected that one? Would it depend on how many others existed? (And same question if OS + Store integration was done at cell network operator/phone reseller level.)

What if there was a plethora of app stores that various phones came with, but they all or almost all independently decided an app was not representative of them, or distasteful, or inappropriate?

Re:Gab is suing Google for allegedly violating antitrust laws by Animats on Friday September 15, 2017 @05:45PM (#15261037)
What if OS + Store integration was done at the cell phone manufacturer level? What if they all ended up settling on the same default store?

Yes. See US vs. Microsoft.

Re:Gab is suing Google for allegedly violating antitrust laws by majormajor on Friday September 15, 2017 @07:01PM (#15261566)
What's the parallel here? There was no app store back then, I'm guessing you're referring to IE, but again, that was Microsoft integrating two Microsoft products together. Similar with Windows on top of DOS.

What if Microsoft had never made a browser, but 90% of manufacturers chose to make Netscape default over Opera, and Opera sued them for it?

Also, why only comment on one of the scenarios?

Re:Gab is suing Google for allegedly violating antitrust laws by detaro on Saturday September 16, 2017 @09:56AM (#15264659)
Not all Android devices come with Google's app store, and some manufacturers have their own. On the other hand, it's also not a simple per-device decision of the manufacturer between Google and the alternatives (afaik manufacturers either ship Play with all of their devices or with none).