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The EU vs Google
By Alberto Mingardi of EconLog.
"My colleague Massimiliano Trovato and I have a piece in the last Politico Europe (you should do to page 23 to read it) on the matter. Thomas Vinje (head of global antitrust at Clifford Chance) is critical of Google and argues that Android’s open source architecture is basically a ruse.
We argue that this case will define Vestager’s “entire legacy as
Europe’s antitrust czar” and that it “seems to have been built on shaky
grounds”.
While it’s true that Android is used by more than 80
percent of smartphones worldwide, the history of the tech sector shows
us that such arrangements can change very rapidly. At one point or
another, Yahoo, Nokia and even MySpace were all thought to have
conquered indisputable monopolies. Now we speak about them in the past
tense.
Too often regulators assume that in tech markets the past is a good
indicator of the future. It is not. And so, in assessing Android’s
dominance it’s important to look carefully at the mobile market and how
it affects consumer welfare.
Android is a Google product — but it’s also much more than that. It
is an open-source software available in countless and potentially
infinite variations, as anyone is allowed to tinker with it. It can be
modified by lone wolves working in their garages or major corporations
devising new products based on the operating system but unwilling to
give away their brand identity or, more importantly, their revenue
sources. For example, Amazon tablets run a customized version of
Android.
Open systems are great, as all software guys will tell you, but there
are trade-offs. Smartphones are complex devices that people ought to be
able to use in the simplest ways. Google requires manufacturers to
submit to compatibility checks, to preinstall its proprietary apps and
to enter into so-called anti-fragmentation agreements, which prevent
them from marketing devices based on competing Android renditions (known
as “forks”). In doing so, Google is ensuring consumers will have a
device they can understand intuitively.
Consumers now know what to expect when they buy a new Android device,
in spite of it being an open system that could vary substantially
between different developers’ versions. Ensuring a smooth and consistent
user experience can be tricky in an open environment — thus the need
for some degree of uniformity. That, in turn, is of paramount importance
to app developers, as it provides them with a reliable audience for
their coding efforts.
Consumers are not “locked in.” They can and do play a role in
policing abuses or wrong strategies, either by personalizing their
handsets (64 billion apps were downloaded from the Google Play store in
2017, according to intelligence firm Sensor Tower) or by switching over
to a different model altogether."
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