I'm surprised there haven't been more lawsuits like this. I expect we'll see more suits like this, plus some about bundling of Chrome, and even about making Google the default search engine in Chrome.
If you install Google Chrome, you do it voluntarily. It's not like the browser was forced up on you. I do understand why they sue for Android issue, as it is quite hard to find a good phone, running Android, that is not bundled with all the Google services.
Maybe you downloaded some software that also bundled Chrome by default: http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-chrome-bundled-with-real...
Same fate will catch Google. Unfortunately for them, they are a one-trick pony, which tries to play everywhere and all the other circus animals hate it for it. Vertical apps are challenging google search in a serious way and this trend will only continue. Microsoft will seriously challenge search with win10 too. Both on the desktop and mobile. Display is facebook's turf and this will only continue too. Cloud is not a feasable option for Google to compete in. Home automation seems kinda desperate. Google effectively has not competed ever for anything. Also, their leadership has a track record for sinking companies with poor partner relations. The once mighty google doesn't seem so invulnerable now.
It says a lot of the rest of your message
I don't think the old browser is even available on the newer versions.
No, they didn't. Bundling IE with Windows was one component of a wider pattern of behavior which, as a whole, Microsoft got in trouble for. They didn't get in trouble for pre-installing IE alone.
If you want to make that case, comparing the actual basis of the MS antitrust case to behavior you can show Google engaging in, feel free.
They do indeed form restrictive licensing agreements with OEMs. Through the MARA, anyone who dares create an Android device that doesn't have Google's blessing is permanently cut off from Google services.
Google's APIs no doubt favor their own services over competitors, where many features of synergistic behavior between services exist which are not represented in their public API.
And Google has absolute intent on continuing these practices. New marketing campaigns and shilled blog articles regularly advertise about the brilliance of their current direction, and they continue to add more and more restrictions on OEMs with every passing year.
(Using "Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Microsoft altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers, Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct." from the Wikipedia article as a source for the other parts of the Microsoft case. Note the article clearly defines the IE tying issue as the principal claim.)
The actual basis was illegal protecting their existing desktop PC OS monopoly by tying, and illegally extending their existing desktop PC OS monopoly to the browser market by tying. Both the existing monopoly context and the purpose were important parts of what made the tying problematic.
Are you asserting: (1) That the market for apps sold via the Play Store is a "market" as that term is used in antitrust analysis, and one over which Google has a monopoly, or that (2) The Play Store itself, as a product, represents a Google monopoly within some market as that term is used in antitrust analysis (And, if #2, what "market")?
I didn't knew that Amazon had 20 Google apps tied to its Android devices
By the way, is calle MADA, no MARA. Perhaps, instead of crying for downvoting you have to inform better.
The issue is that the Play Store is tied to 20 other apps. In a fashion that violates both laws here in the United States and in other countries abroad.
If it violates so many laws it will be easy to provide at least one proof of that claim, isn't?
Can you cite the specific provision of U.S. law that it violates?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_%28commerce%29
Assuming that the Wikipedia article is factually correct on the requirements, provisions 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all true.
It seems loosely correct.
> provisions 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all true.
I'd love to see your analysis supporting the claim that condition 3 ("the seller has sufficient market power in the market for the tying product") is true, including your definition of the relevant market and your analysis establishing that it is a relevant market under antitrust law.
Yes, the case was bigger than just that, but now you are just nitpicking my comment.
Fact: They were charged with illegally maintaining their existing PC desktop operating system market by, among other means, tieing IE to Windows in response to a perceived threat that a competitive internet browser market on desktop OS's would undermine its desktop OS monopoly, and simultaneously for attempting to monopolize the internet browser market by leveraging their existing Windows desktop OS monopoly through tieing IE to Windows. On both sides, the relation to the Windows monopoly was a key element of why they got in trouble.
They didn't get in trouble for bundling IE except in the sense that someone who gets a jaywalking ticket gets in trouble for walking.
Why? Attacking Microsoft in the 90s didn't make Netscape financially viable ($40 for a browser?), didn't fix Windows, didn't make the web better, and didn't do anything but guarantee an IE6-like wasteland as motivation to innovate was destroyed by the DOJ. The deal MS cut with the DOJ lead to OEM empowerment, thus guaranteeing that the laptop you buy is full of crapware.
EU-like policies of "browser pickers" are asinine annoyanceware that help no one and confuse non-techies.
I think this nerd friendly activism about browser choice is positively anachronistic. I mean, this like clamoring for zip choice or image viewer choice. Those ships have long sailed. Browsers are boring commodities. End users who want a different one can get one trivially.