Google worked as '1 company' with Apple, paying the iPhone maker up to $12 billion...

[UltraMega]

Quote

The landmark antitrust lawsuit filed against Google on Tuesday said the internet giant pays Apple between $8 billion and $12 billion to make Google's search engine the default on iPhones and other Apple devices. It claims Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai met in 2018 to discuss the deal.

 

After this meeting, an anonymous senior Apple employee wrote to a Google counterpart that "our vision is that we work as if we are one company," the DOJ said in its suit.

 

The companies declined to comment on the alleged meeting to the Wall Street Journal.

 

The lawsuit cited a Google document that called the Apple search deal a "significant revenue channel," and that said losing the deal would be "Code Red" scenario.

 

That's because Google estimates nearly half of its search traffic in 2019 came from Apple devices, the lawsuit said.

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/google-worked-as-1-company-with-apple-paying-the-iphone-maker-up-to-2412-billion-for-a-search-engine-deal-that-disadvantaged-competitors-us-antitrust-suit-claims/ar-BB1afBME

 

Bad news for both companies. A statement like that from one major company to another seems like a real smoking gun.

[ENTERPRISE]

Oh wow, yeah that is not good. That is a heavy statement to make and is going to raise some eyebrows. The fact that Google pays apple to make Google the defacto search engine on Apple devices is absurd lol.

[UltraMega]

13 minutes ago, ENTERPRISE said:

Oh wow, yeah that is not good. That is a heavy statement to make and is going to raise some eyebrows. The fact that Google pays apple to make Google the defacto search engine on Apple devices is absurd lol.

Yea for sure. When you consider that google pays more year after year to be default for apple than Microsoft paid to acquire Bethesda speaks volumes about how far they will go to ensure they are always the default option.

[Diffident]

This isn't really a new thing.  Google also pays Mozilla to make Google the default search engine in Firefox, it's never been a secret.  The deal is necessary for Mozilla to survive.

[Damon]

I've been using Bing for the past two years.  I get Amazon gift cards just for using it.

[ENTERPRISE]

9 hours ago, Diffident said:

This isn't really a new thing.  Google also pays Mozilla to make Google the default search engine in Firefox, it's never been a secret.  The deal is necessary for Mozilla to survive.

 

To be honest, I kind of get that. For free software such as a browser I would understand that as browsers are usually donation based to survive etc. 

 

7 hours ago, Damon said:

I've been using Bing for the past two years.  I get Amazon gift cards just for using it.

 

Witchcraft ! How do you manage to get free gift cards?

[UltraMega]

6 hours ago, ENTERPRISE said:

 

To be honest, I kind of get that. For free software such as a browser I would understand that as browsers are usually donation based to survive etc. 

 

 

Witchcraft ! How do you manage to get free gift cards?

Bing rewards program.

[Damon]

7 hours ago, ENTERPRISE said:

 

To be honest, I kind of get that. For free software such as a browser I would understand that as browsers are usually donation based to survive etc. 

 

 

Witchcraft ! How do you manage to get free gift cards?

It doesn't have to be Amazon.  They have starbucks and xbox, etc.  You have to be signed into msn or bing with a microsoft account.  If in the rare case I can't find something on bing, I normally can't find it on google either. 

[W95CIH]

I doubt much will be done. Just virtue signalling of the political type. Look at Microsoft and how it worked out for them.

[UltraMega]

17 minutes ago, W95CIH said:

I doubt much will be done. Just virtue signalling of the political type. Look at Microsoft and how it worked out for them.

Microsoft had to agree to new rules and regulations. They lost the anti-trust suite but they were able to avoid a forced company break up.

[Diffident]

5 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Microsoft had to agree to new rules and regulations. They lost the anti-trust suite but they were able to avoid a forced company break up.

Microsoft is still just as anti-competitive as ever.  Just look at all the multi-platform game developers they've bought recently that now only release for Microsoft platforms.

[schuck6566]

8 hours ago, W95CIH said:

I doubt much will be done. Just virtue signalling of the political type. Look at Microsoft and how it worked out for them.

Ummm, U mean like with the forced removal of Windows Media Player from the OS?"Microsoft forced to split Windows, Media Player by EU"https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2004/12/4480-2/

2 hours ago, Diffident said:

Microsoft is still just as anti-competitive as ever.  Just look at all the multi-platform game developers they've bought recently that now only release for Microsoft platforms.

Having a games division,bringing developers "into their fold" is unfortunately sound business practice.Look @ Sony and THEIR game exclusives. @ least with Microsoft there's the hope of seeing the game on 2 platforms, unlike Sony's single platform.Or maybe you'd like to address the Nintendo exclusives? Seems they're all buying developers,Microsoft has just been a little more blatant about it."Sony has announced a new PlayStation Studios brand that it’ll be using for its first-party exclusives going forward as a way to let customers know that a game comes from one of Sony’s in-house development teams.The new branding is simpler and more focused on the PlayStation brand. It can also help Sony easily highlight exclusive games for customers who may not know that Sony owns Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo), Naughty Dog (Uncharted, The Last of Us), Insomniac Games (Spider-Man), Santa Monica Studio (God of War), Media Molecule, or Sucker Punch (inFamous, Ghost of Tsushima).https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/playstation-studios-all-sony-first-party-developers-and-what-theyre-working-on

[UltraMega]

16 hours ago, Diffident said:

Microsoft is still just as anti-competitive as ever.  Just look at all the multi-platform game developers they've bought recently that now only release for Microsoft platforms.

Microsoft is actually very much not that way. They take obvious steps and measures to keep from stepping on people's toes in those kinds of ways. Expanding their gaming division with a some purchase is not even a little bit of an anti trust issue since the video game industry is highly competitive and they're doing nothing to prevent anyone else for competing.

 

Microsoft is actually a great example for other companies to look on how to be a giant company without getting into any anti trust issues. They definitely learned from their mistakes.

[W95CIH]

14 hours ago, schuck6566 said:

Ummm, U mean like with the forced removal of Windows Media Player from the OS?"Microsoft forced to split Windows, Media Player by EU"https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2004/12/4480-2/

 

Trying to not be political on this... so ill try...

 

I was originally talking about the 1998 antitrust lawsuit but lets look at what you linked. First 500 million pound fine is like a grain of sand for them. They make 38 billion in one quarter easily. Most fines are metered over a period of time, probably years to make it even easier to absorb. It's a proverbial slap on the wrist for them. It is just gesturing on the government side to "appear" to be doing something.(they probably work behind the scenes with politicians for back door money and campaigning)

 

Microsoft is like 90% of the desktop/laptop OS still. Netscape was run out of business and as far as a media player goes... Whoopie doo... The only irony for me is to see Chrome browser take over the same way IE did with the os having it provided. Microsoft still merged IE back into the Windows OS not long after it separated it. So i am guessing Media player will follow the same path eventually.

 

Either way the summary for me is... Antitrust=joke  I mean now you get no choice if you want Edge browser on your PC. Even so, you can't uninstall google chrome browser from an android OS either. So yeah..

 

 

[Diffident]

5 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Microsoft is actually very much not that way. They take obvious steps and measures to keep from stepping on people's toes in those kinds of ways. Expanding their gaming division with a some purchase is not even a little bit of an anti trust issue since the video game industry is highly competitive and they're doing nothing to prevent anyone else for competing.

 

Microsoft is actually a great example for other companies to look on how to be a giant company without getting into any anti trust issues. They definitely learned from their mistakes.

What do you mean?  They just bought multiple game studios that developed Linux games that now only release games for Microsoft operating systems.  How is Microsoft "not that way" They're maintaining their market dominance by buying developers of competing OS's.  This is what Southern Oil did to spur the creation of antitrust laws.  

 

 

19 hours ago, schuck6566 said:

Ummm, U mean like with the forced removal of Windows Media Player from the OS?"Microsoft forced to split Windows, Media Player by EU"https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2004/12/4480-2/

Having a games division,bringing developers "into their fold" is unfortunately sound business practice.Look @ Sony and THEIR game exclusives. @ least with Microsoft there's the hope of seeing the game on 2 platforms, unlike Sony's single platform.Or maybe you'd like to address the Nintendo exclusives? Seems they're all buying developers,Microsoft has just been a little more blatant about it."Sony has announced a new PlayStation Studios brand that it’ll be using for its first-party exclusives going forward as a way to let customers know that a game comes from one of Sony’s in-house development teams.The new branding is simpler and more focused on the PlayStation brand. It can also help Sony easily highlight exclusive games for customers who may not know that Sony owns Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo), Naughty Dog (Uncharted, The Last of Us), Insomniac Games (Spider-Man), Santa Monica Studio (God of War), Media Molecule, or Sucker Punch (inFamous, Ghost of Tsushima).https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/playstation-studios-all-sony-first-party-developers-and-what-theyre-working-on

What is Sony's and Nintendo's market share in the OS space compared to Microsoft?

[schuck6566]

 

7 hours ago, Diffident said:

 

What is Sony's and Nintendo's market share in the OS space compared to Microsoft?

Let's see some comparison. "The Steam Hardware Survey reports that as of April 2019, 0.81% of users are using some form of Linux as their platforms primary operating system."

This is quoted from Forbes "

Here are the top-ten best-selling consoles of all time:

 

1. PlayStation 2 — 155 million units sold
2. Nintendo DS — 154.02 million units sold
3. Game Boy / Game Boy Color — 118.69 million units sold
4. PlayStation 4 — 108.9 million units sold
5. PlayStation 1 — 102.49 million units sold
6. Wii — 101.63 million units sold
7. PlayStation 3 — 87.4 million units sold
8. Xbox 360 — 84 million units sold
9. Game Boy Advance — 81.51 million units sold
10. PlayStation Portable — between 80 and 82 million units sold

Way down in 15th place you have the Xbox One with an estimated 46.9 million units sold. The original Xbox lands at 19th place with 24 million units sold, behind the Atari 2600, Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis. Meanwhile, PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 have each outsold every single Xbox system."

I'm posting this since my original comment about MS buying game companies wasn't limited to them being an OS provider. Or maybe U haven't heard about Xbox Game Pass Ultimate? "With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, download and play games directly on your Xbox console or Windows 10 PC, or play games on your Android mobile phone or tablet from the cloud (Beta) with the Xbox Game Pass mobile app." They're simply doing what Sony/Playstation and Nintendo are doing. Providing games on gaming systems.

[UltraMega]

8 hours ago, Diffident said:

What do you mean?  They just bought multiple game studios that developed Linux games that now only release games for Microsoft operating systems.  How is Microsoft "not that way" They're maintaining their market dominance by buying developers of competing OS's.  This is what Southern Oil did to spur the creation of antitrust laws.  

 

 

What is Sony's and Nintendo's market share in the OS space compared to Microsoft?

Because the video game market is full of lots of different competitors, Microsoft is no where near having a monopoly. Mobile is the largest gamin platform technically and Microsoft isn't even a part of that at all. If they kept buying all the video game studios until they owned so much of the market that they were able to control the market behavior, then they would be doing something wrong but it's just no where near that point. 

 

Also, Windows is not even the most prevalent OS anymore, android is. 

 

Microsoft remains much larger than google because they have made a lot of smart moves to diversify their business so they no longer rely on very heavily on any one product or tech market for revenue, which is a big reason why they are such a good company to invest in these days. Windows only makes up ~13% of their profits now. They have a hand in lots of different jars but other than the PC OS market specifically they don't really command/control any markets by throwing their weight around. As for the PC OS market, the mere fact that linux exists as a free alternative pretty much invalidates any argument that Microsoft has a monopoly there, and the OS market is a little different because we all benifit greatly from having wide familiarity and compatibility across devices. 

[Diffident]

7 hours ago, schuck6566 said:

 

Let's see some comparison. "The Steam Hardware Survey reports that as of April 2019, 0.81% of users are using some form of Linux as their platforms primary operating system."

This is quoted from Forbes "

Here are the top-ten best-selling consoles of all time:

 

1. PlayStation 2 — 155 million units sold
2. Nintendo DS — 154.02 million units sold
3. Game Boy / Game Boy Color — 118.69 million units sold
4. PlayStation 4 — 108.9 million units sold
5. PlayStation 1 — 102.49 million units sold
6. Wii — 101.63 million units sold
7. PlayStation 3 — 87.4 million units sold
8. Xbox 360 — 84 million units sold
9. Game Boy Advance — 81.51 million units sold
10. PlayStation Portable — between 80 and 82 million units sold

Way down in 15th place you have the Xbox One with an estimated 46.9 million units sold. The original Xbox lands at 19th place with 24 million units sold, behind the Atari 2600, Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis. Meanwhile, PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 have each outsold every single Xbox system."

I'm posting this since my original comment about MS buying game companies wasn't limited to them being an OS provider. Or maybe U haven't heard about Xbox Game Pass Ultimate? "With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, download and play games directly on your Xbox console or Windows 10 PC, or play games on your Android mobile phone or tablet from the cloud (Beta) with the Xbox Game Pass mobile app." They're simply doing what Sony/Playstation and Nintendo are doing. Providing games on gaming systems.

 

Listing every console sold since the beginning of time is not OS market share.  Most of those devices are no longer in use.  Oh and the Xbox game pass isn't available for Linux.  Not allowing Game Pass on Linux is a strategic decision.  No one would have to use Windows anymore.   It's not a coincidence that the game companies they bought were Linux developers.

6 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Because the video game market is full of lots of different competitors, Microsoft is no where near having a monopoly. Mobile is the largest gamin platform technically and Microsoft isn't even a part of that at all. If they kept buying all the video game studios until they owned so much of the market that they were able to control the market behavior, then they would be doing something wrong but it's just no where near that point. 

 

Also, Windows is not even the most prevalent OS anymore, android is. 

 

Microsoft remains much larger than google because they have made a lot of smart moves to diversify their business so they no longer rely on very heavily on any one product or tech market for revenue, which is a big reason why they are such a good company to invest in these days. Windows only makes up ~13% of their profits now. They have a hand in lots of different jars but other than the PC OS market specifically they don't really command/control any markets by throwing their weight around. As for the PC OS market, the mere fact that linux exists as a free alternative pretty much invalidates any argument that Microsoft has a monopoly there, and the OS market is a little different because we all benifit greatly from having wide familiarity and compatibility across devices. 

 

What?  They have over 90% of the desktop market and do everything possible to lock applications to Windows.  Yet Google has the same market share in the search space and is being investigated for it.  The only reason why Microsoft gets away with it is, people think that they need Windows.  They are controlling the market by buying developers of competing OS's, what better way to eliminate a growing threat then to buy up software developers of that OS.   If it was all about growing their game portfolio, why did Microsoft stop developing for other platforms?  It's to maintain control of the OS market.

 

If Nvidia started buying game companies and locked the games to only work on Nvidia GPU's everyone would be screaming blooding murder.  But when Microsoft does it no one has a problem.

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, Diffident said:

 

Listing every console sold since the beginning of time is not OS market share.  Most of those devices are no longer in use.  Oh and the Xbox game pass isn't available for Linux.  Not allowing Game Pass on Linux is a strategic decision.  No one would have to use Windows anymore.   It's not a coincidence that the game companies they bought were Linux developers.

 

What?  They have over 90% of the desktop market and do everything possible to lock applications to Windows.  Yet Google has the same market share in the search space and is being investigated for it.  The only reason why Microsoft gets away with it is, people think that they need Windows.  They are controlling the market by buying developers of competing OS's, what better way to eliminate a growing threat then to buy up software developers of that OS.   If it was all about growing their game portfolio, why did Microsoft stop developing for other platforms?  It's to maintain control of the OS market.

 

If Nvidia started buying game companies and locked the games to only work on Nvidia GPU's everyone would be screaming blooding murder.  But when Microsoft does it no one has a problem.

Talking to you is like talking to a wall. You ignore answers to your questions and just restate the same things over again. I remember you doing this on OCN as well. 

Edited October 24, 2020 by UltraMega

[W95CIH]

While the topic of OP is about google. Microsoft was, if i recall the OG of tech anti trust suits. During this time, PC was the market since mobile devices weren't really a thing. Mixing the two now is misleading, simply because if you look at the Desktop segment(unless ExtremeHW means mobile devices?), Microshaft still has a monopoly.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2020 by W95CIH

[UltraMega]

10 minutes ago, W95CIH said:

While the topic of OP is about google. Microsoft was, if i recall the OG of tech anti trust suits. During this time, PC was the market since mobile devices weren't really a thing. Mixing the two now is misleading, simply because if you look at the Desktop segment(unless ExtremeHW means mobile devices?), Microshaft still has a monopoly.

 

 

 

 

 

Again, the existence of a free OS for desktop kills any PC OS monopoly argument. If people wanted to use a different OS, there is nothing stopping them from installing linux.

[schuck6566]

OR to bring Google BACK into the subject matter, they can install the Chrome OS. So @Diffident there's ANOTHER company making a pc operating system,and the reason I listed the consoles was because the game developer comment I made that U seem to have a problem with had NOTHING to do with the OS development part of Microsoft. It was part of the games division. YOU took 2 separate comments,1 about large software development companies NOT being punished for anti-trust in which I posted the fines & software revisions forced on Microsoft for JUST that,and the second about how the game developer purchases were more in the nature of smart business sense for the games division and showed where OTHER companies with a games division did the same. Sorry my comments don't fit your agenda. 1 final thought, have you heard of Wine? lol

[Diffident]

8 minutes ago, schuck6566 said:

OR to bring Google BACK into the subject matter, they can install the Chrome OS. So @Diffident there's ANOTHER company making a pc operating system,and the reason I listed the consoles was because the game developer comment I made that U seem to have a problem with had NOTHING to do with the OS development part of Microsoft. It was part of the games division. YOU took 2 separate comments,1 about large software development companies NOT being punished for anti-trust in which I posted the fines & software revisions forced on Microsoft for JUST that,and the second about how the game developer purchases were more in the nature of smart business sense for the games division and showed where OTHER companies with a games division did the same. Sorry my comments don't fit your agenda. 1 final thought, have you heard of Wine? lol

Yes I've heard of Chrome OS.  Chrome OS is a walled garden Linux distro based on Gentoo Linux.

 

 The problem isn't Microsoft buying the game studios. The problem is that now the game studios only develop for Microsoft OS's. 

49 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

Again, the existence of a free OS for desktop kills any PC OS monopoly argument. If people wanted to use a different OS, there is nothing stopping them from installing linux.

Except for Microsoft buying Linux software developers and then only releasing those products for Windows.  You don't see the conflict there?

 

Does the existence of other search engines kill any search engine monopoly argument against Google?

[UltraMega]

38 minutes ago, Diffident said:

Yes I've heard of Chrome OS.  Chrome OS is a walled garden Linux distro based on Gentoo Linux.

 

 The problem isn't Microsoft buying the game studios. The problem is that now the game studios only develop for Microsoft OS's. 

Except for Microsoft buying Linux software developers and then only releasing those products for Windows.  You don't see the conflict there?

 

Does the existence of other search engines kill any search engine monopoly argument against Google?

Do you have a real example of Microsoft eliminating any linux software as you describe?

 

Also, and I cannot over state this... PC makers buy windows from Microsoft. Microsoft does not pay them to use windows, as alphabet does with google.

Edited October 24, 2020 by UltraMega

[UltraMega]

Just adding a thought to this, think about Steam OS. When it launched, microsoft didn't do anything to try to stop it or sway PC makers away from it, but since developing an OS people actually want to use is such a monumental task, steam OS simply failed on its own. The reason microsoft dominates the PC OS market is mostly because they were literally the first software company ever. They were the first ever software company and they invented operating systems. They have such a massive head start for something that is extremely hard to do, but those factors alone don't make it a monopoly.