Comment on Epic Games wins antitrust lawsuit against Google
slazer2au@lemmy.world 11 months agoBecause the apple argument was different and that’s what matters.
Apple designs, builds, and sells iPhones/iPads
Apple wrote the ios which only runs on iPhones/iPads (within technical reasons) and are the owners of the code.
Google however, does not build phones. Apart from the Pixel phones. Samsung designs and builds phones, LG use to design and build phones, but would install Android.
Android while mostly maintained by Google, is not owned by Google also was not originally created by Google and can be run on just about any arm64 device not just things created by Google.
In the lay terms of you purchased a PC from Dell running Ubuntu and could only install applications via the Microsoft Store you would be pretty unhappy.
cybersandwich@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Is that Apples argument though? I read the article but now its locked behind a paywall so I can’t re-read.
But your lay terms example isn’t exactly what happened according to the article. What Google did would be akin to buying a PC with Ubuntu on it, but where Google has made deals with Canonical to make their app store default. You can still use Canonical’s Ubuntu snAPP store, or flatpaks, dpkg -i, etc. But the simple fact that Google paid money to Canonical to make their Google app store the default is what the court is saying is anti-competitive.
The thing is: I dont necessarily disagree with that assessment. I think the court may have gotten this correct. Large companies have been using tactics like this for decades at this point to cement their position/fend off competition. It’s the definition of anti-competitive.
My point is that Apple, by completely refusing to allow “side loading”/other app stores on their devices has somehow sidestepped “anti-competitive” regulation here. It’s almost like it wasn’t ‘overt’ enough? Maybe because money didn’t change hands. Again, I am not a lawyer, but its hard to argue that not allowing other services or apps onto your system is good for competition. Maybe thats the rub? Maybe not being good for competition and being anti-competitive are legally different things? Maybe its because Google to an “overt action” and used their position, money, and influence to make deals to stifle competition, but Apple has it’s “safety and security” , “people pay for our walled garden”, “our walled ecosystem is the product” arguments.