Google – Toothless in Europe pt. III.

Misleading rebuttal that Google did not need to make.

• Google has responded with dismay to the EU’s decision announced on the 8^th of July but I suspect that behind closed doors, it is perfectly happy with the decision with the exception of $5.03bn fine.
• Google has made a statement that rebuts the EU’s assertion that it has abused its position of dominance in Android but failed to address the three illegal acts that the EU claims it has committed.
• Furthermore, Google also makes a number of other statements that I find to be misleading.
• These are:
  • First, competing browsers. Google states that competing browsers Opera Mini and Firefox have been downloaded over 100m times.
  • RFM estimates that there are 2bn Android users out there of which 1.2bn use a Google certified Android device.
  • The other 800m or so are Chinese devices where Google Chrome is not present and where UC browser is strong.
  • Hence, the Opera Mini and FireFox downloads would account for just 8% of all Google certified handsets in the best instance.
  • By my definition, this is not effective competition.
  • Second: choice. The statement that handset makers and mobile operators have a choice with regards to installing Google Digital Life services is misleading.
  • This is because if handset makers and mobile operators do not install Google Digital Life services they are unlikely to be able to sell their devices in any meaningful volumes in developed markets.
  • This is why I believe that while Google apps are entirely voluntary technically, they are effectively mandatory because there will be no meaningful handset sales without them.
  • Third, disabling and uninstalling: Google states that “if you prefer other apps—or browsers, or search engines—to the preloaded ones, you can easily disable or delete them, and choose other apps instead”.
  • I find this statement to be misleading at best and untrue at worst.
  • A good number of the apps both from the handset makers and from Google itself are impossible to uninstall and cumbersome to disable on many handsets.
  • The vast majority of users will have no idea of how to disable apps, meaning that Google and the handset makers have effectively made them mandatory.
• While Google has made a poor and misleading rebuttal against the EU’s findings, the good news is that it doesn’t really need to.
• This is because the EU has failed (see here) to require Google to make the one remedy that could make a difference.
• This remedy is the unbundling of Google Play from the rest of the Google Ecosystem.
• Access to Google Play is required to sell a handset in developed markets and while Google can require that handset makers deploy its other services front and centre on their devices in order to get access to it, nothing is going to change.
• This also means that in markets where Google is not yet pervasive (Africa), handset makers and operators will be forced to deploy Google services as default making it very difficult for them to offer new Internet users any alternative.
• The EU has missed the opportunity to make Android more competitive and I do not think that it will occur again.
• Google is the net winner here and if it can get the fine reduced, the EU’s few remaining teeth will have been removed.

Reply to this post