The lawsuit argues that Google has effectively ‘bought’ the UK mobile phone search engine market. Google forced mobile phone handset manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search and Google Chrome browser apps on devices that use Google’s Android operating system in order to obtain a licence to use Google Play.
Google also unlawfully paid billions to Apple to ensure that it was the default search engine on iPhones and other devices that used Apple’s iOS operating system. In 2019, Google paid £1.2 billion to Apple in the UK to be the default search engine on the Safari browser.
It is claimed that Google has used its market dominance to effectively charge advertisers over the odds. Costs were then passed on to such an extent that all consumers ended up paying higher prices for goods and services sold by brands that have advertised on the platform.
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Let’s say google is fined 7B. Is there any real competition for the search engine space. Maybe Bing the next big mainstream service. Brave? DDG? They all have some flaw though and isn’t as seamless as Google.
True, but imo ddg has gotten pretty close in terms of capability.
But Google has become the Walmart of the internet. The only thing their missing is a literal storefront.
Need email? Gmail. Need a browser? Google Chrome Want entertainment? YouTube Search engine? Google Phone OS? Android (most) Chromebooks, Google Office Suite, AdSense.
Google has way too much power over the internet.
I haven’t tried DDG ever since the whole Microsoft fiasco but I’ll give it another try. I do agree with everything else you said though. Thank goodness I have degoogled my devices.
I think Google Shopping counts as a storefront
Yandex works pretty well
An interesting case and claim. Indirect correlation.
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Make them cry.
Just cost of doing business for Google
7 billion is not just “cost of business” for Google lmao
Some of you are so out if touch from this world if you think Google isn’t really concerned about such an amount
Meh Cost of doing business which is already accounted.
Maybe so but it’s still a step in the right direction. Legal precedent is important to pave the way for larger changes.
I wish we had some leadership with the balls to do some post industrial revolution style trust busting
Ahhh, feels good, my faith in humanity is (briefly) restored, waiting to see them actually pay it
I wouldn’t get excited until it’s successful. They got expensive lawyers.
I tend to be pretty pessimistic about these cases. Even if the UK Govt win, Google won’t change anything, or if they do the change will be subtle enough to not have any impact
I’m not so sure, if it is quite expensive and carries on being quite expensive, they may need to make changes to default search or default browsers. If this can help people get Firefox easier, this could start to chip away at the viability of WEI (web DRM).
this is a £7 billion fine against a company that can afford to pay apple £1.2 billion for a system default…
Because they gain more from it. They pay Firefox for default search. There is a return on investment. $7bn is a larger cost and would need greater revenue from those activities to justify it. Whether they do or not, from the UK market, we’ll have to wait and see, but it is a reasonable dint.