Google Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft, Nokia 233
x0d writes with news that Google filed an EU antitrust complaint against Microsoft and Nokia on Thursday, claiming they are using proxy companies to make smartphone-related patent claims in an attack on Google's Android business. From the article:
"Google also plans to share its complaint about patent 'trolls' with U.S. competition regulators. The Internet-search giant alleges that Microsoft and Nokia have entered into agreements that enable entities such as Canada-based Mosaid Technologies Inc. to legally enforce their patent rights and share the resulting revenue. Google, which hasn't been sued by Mosaid or related firms, described its filing with European regulators as a pre-emptive measure against a developing legal hazard for Android partners. The threat is that if phone makers perceive a significant legal risk in using Android, they may opt instead for Microsoft's Windows Phone software."
War by proxy (Score:3)
Distrust (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I distrust Google, which is quite a bit ever since they started asking for phone numbers, they still haven't reached the same level of fear that I have Microsoft and its insistence on forcing everyone into its collective. Add to that the fact that it's also against Nokia, a company I once adored before they jumped in bed with the devil incarnate, I must now say "good on you Google!"
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I wondered where the OP got that impression too... It takes an unreasonably large amount of technical prowess to actually eradicate all of Google's tendrils.
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It takes an unreasonably large amount of technical prowess to actually eradicate all of Google's tendrils.
DuckDuckGo [duckduckgo.com], NoScript [noscript.net], and OpenPGP [openpgp.org]?
What am I missing? A robots.txt [wikipedia.org] file?
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There's also avoiding use of Google's CDN, DNS, various Google-owned companies including DoubleClick and AdMob (try avoiding the latter if you have an Android - it's pretty hard unless you basically don't run any apps at all), YouTube, Picasa, various javascript include files, ReCaptcha, etc..
At this point in time, I don't th
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Care to explain some of this? How do you think I can achieve this in my workplace, where I don't control what Operating system is on my computer? I could chose not to use gmail, reader and chrome browser (the 3 big things I use after search) and switch to other services (losing the @gmail.com address would be difficult at first, I admit) but I don't see how I can avoid Windows, even at home (to play most games).
No, if, in Imaginary Land, everything Microsoft were to disappear tomorrow, we'd feel a much grea
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The search engine is the only product I use. DDG is catching up pretty well though.
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I believe Duck Duck Go uses Bing for searches.
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Apple is easy to avoid by buying any of the thousands of other products their software doesn't run on. Microsoft, on the other hand, wants to be on all those thousands of other products.
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Oh, and of course Google wants to be on them all.
Re:Distrust (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as they keep killing the competition with their competence instead of compelling us to consume their crap with coercion then I'm fine with that. I don't use google because there are no alternatives, there are alternatives to everything they offer. I use google because so far it is superior for my needs.
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Killing the competition accomplishes the same thing. Think about it, would Google have asked for phone numbers and insisted on using real names a decade ago? They've got power now and their going to use it.
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Killing the competition accomplishes the same thing. Think about it, would Google have asked for phone numbers and insisted on using real names a decade ago? They've got power now and their going to use it.
So you plan to use a poorly-implemented and unsustainable service deliberately instead? OK, it's your choice, but it is kind-of silly. Yes, competing with Google is hard, very hard, but nobody has the right to get web traffic, especially if they don't provide a service that is any good. Nor is it going to be possible for a service provider to keep providing the service unless they get money from somewhere, and I wouldn't want it to be done by government handouts!
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I don't like the real names policy either, but it's not like the competition doesn't have the same policy. The alternative is diaspora (as far as I am aware there are not other credible, directly comparable alternatives) and it has not really been embraced so far.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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It seems that Google+ will be connected with many systems and a Google+ account will be a very important if you put content online that you want to promote.
Want to get more clicks from google searches? Set up your site so it connects to your Google+ account so your picture can be included in the search pages.
I'm not saying if it's good or bad but it's different.
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Many, if not most people.
Times have changed. Perceptions of technology and the internet have changed. Concerns of trust have waned.
It's not the power grab your seem to think it is. Google isn't forcing anyone to do anything (except "real" names on Google+, which is more like, can't use things that are obviously psuedonyms). It's a sign of a wider cultural shift.
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Depends on the country. The last time I had to create a Google Docs account, they required typing in a code sent via SMS to the phone number you provided, without a way to skip it. The message included the words "in your country", so I guess the rules differ in different parts of the world.
Fortunately, I had an old SIM card from DebConf in Bosnia that still worked :)
Re:Distrust (Score:5, Informative)
Hi EzInKy,
Beyond being an avid reader of Slashdot comments (10+ years now!), I also work on Google account security, so am quite familiar with the phone number prompts you're seeing. Let me give you some background and maybe you can at least see our perspective on why we're doing this and why it's not necessarily "evil".
The traditional approach to handling users who forget their passwords, or otherwise need to be identified via a non-password based mechanism, is the secret question and answer. We have spent many years trying to make secret QA work. I myself wrote the code we use to correct typos, handle different abbreviations of street addresses, normalize unicode characters etc to try and increase the success rate. Other people have analyzed the types of questions/answers provided and encouraged users to select better ones. All to no avail. People just suck at choosing these options .... some people choose absurdly easy questions like "Do I like the incredible hulk?" or "In what month did I get married?". Lots of people forget the answer, even with the hint. The suggestions we provide (library card number, frequent flyer number) are often ignored as being too much hassle. Some questions looks superficially strong ("What is my mothers maiden name?") but we've seen fraudsters from Nigeria successfully research the answer to that question starting from nothing more than an email address! To top it all off, the success rate for good users is staggeringly low. Even with all the effort we put in to handling common mistakes, the success rate is rarely higher than 25%.
So we gave up on it. New Google accounts do not prompt you for a secret QA. Instead we ask for a phone number. The reason is that it's a kind of "second password" that cannot be guessed by random strangers unless you happen to publish it on the web (happens, but rare), most people have memorized it, and if we need a strong proof of authentication - like if you forget your password - we make an automated phone call. We have also been asking users to provide a phone number for existing accounts for the same reasons, our stats show users with phone numbers are dramatically less likely to lose their accounts.
You may think, well, I'll never forget my password so this is irrelevant. But nowadays we also use it as a second password in cases where we aren't sure a login is really coming from you (it seems unusual or suspicious in some way). You normally just have to type it in to confirm you know it. In very high risk cases, like using an IP that's been heavily abused before, we may want to send you a message.
You're right that the UI strongly encourages people to provide a number although it's still optional. I'd personally prefer to have the UI you suggest. However that will lead to a lot of users getting locked out of their accounts, no two ways about it. The alternatives for proving your identity are just so much harder. So there are no ideal solutions here. The numbers aren't used for anything else (certainly not advertising or anything like that).
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I've used Google for years, and didn't know this was the reason behind the phone number (beyond being able to get a password reset sent to me by SMS). I've never received any unsolicited calls on my number, so I know it has not been used for marketing.
Today was the first time they asked me to use the number for anything, when using Google checkout for the first time to buy the new Humble Bundle.
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Re:Distrust (Score:4, Interesting)
It actually is there already, at least in the current versions of the recovery interstitial. It says something like "Hey, this is important: We don't have a password recovery email address or phone number for your account. If you lose access, we may not be able to help you." and mentions that people without a phone number are much more likely to accidentally lose access to their account. I'm not sure we can make it much clearer than that, the more text on the screen the fewer people will read it.
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Sigh ... I really should re-read my posts. My apologies for the missing words, etc.
Thanks. (Score:2)
I really appreciate it when someone who actually does that work steps up and let us know what's really going on. I like the phone number idea as that assures me that I'm going to get a password reset message if someone tries to make trouble with my account. I also have never received unsolicited phone calls as a result of my disclosure of my phone number to Google. I have an Android phone, so it makes sense anyway.
The post by IamTheRealMike is one of the reasons I enjoy reading Slashdot. I am always looking
Legal Risk (Score:4, Insightful)
(Posting AC because I'm at work, not because I'm going to get modded into the stone age for what I'm about to say...)
Google ... described its filing with European regulators as a pre-emptive measure against a developing legal hazard for Android partners. The threat is that if phone makers perceive a significant legal risk in using Android...
Um, if there's a legal hazard in using Android, maybe that means Google/manufacturer's should license patents from Microsoft (or others). I know the current belief on /. is that everybody should be able to make whatever they want, even if they copy someone else's work but, ignoring whether or not I agree with that view, that's simply not how the world works. Sorry - it isn't. The world works such that, if you invent it and you patent it, you have the right to get paid when someone else uses it (or outright block them from using it for a time). You may not like that, and many don't, but that's how the world works. Not just the US - the world. Google may view that as a problem but the solution is simple - build Android so that it doesn't infringe on any patents or license the patents so that there's no legal risk.
I know I'll be in the minority on this one but, sorry - the system is what the system is. It's simple, design around the patent or license it. Or don't and deal with the consequences.
Re:Legal Risk (Score:5, Insightful)
Licensing patents from trolls is like paying protection money to criminals. You're only providing them resources and incentive to continue their extortion and find new victims. The only right thing to do is put the criminals out of business, not pay them off.
Re:Legal Risk (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legal Risk (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing. Every single one of the big phone manufacturers has a thousand patents that every other phone manufacturer has infringed on since the beginning of the industry. They all know this, but for literally decades everyone involved was smart enough to look at the situation and say "Oh hell no! I'm not starting that fight". The in strolled the new kid on the block, they bought some patents on the core technologies (enough to ensure they were inside the circle of mutually assured destruction along with the other manufacturers) but then they went and patented a few (frankly quite silly) UI patents. And so they thought to themselves, we might not be able to start the holy war on the core technologies, but we can certainly fire off just a few shots to protect our user interface. Which is a lot like the US during the cold war saying "surely the Soviets won't mind if we launch nuclear tipped cruise missiles at Kiev, after all, they're not ICBMs".
And the result has been about what you would expect. All out patent war in the cell phone industry, with constantly shifting alliances, tactics, and weapons. We've had import bans because a photo gallery app slid just past the available pictures to communicate to the user that they were at the end. We've had court cases fought over "Swipe to unlock". We've had multi-billion dollar companies bought, sold, and gutted for their patent portfolios. And, most importantly and the issue no one seems to pay attention to, we've created an environment where there is absolutely no chance, literally zero, of a new player entering the game.
So, you say to Google "build Android so that it doesn't infringe on patents". I say 50% of those patents are invalid, and it's just going to take the right court case to show that once and for all. Of the remaining 50%, everyone in the industry stomps all over them, to the point where even the biggest players can't be sure who owns what, who is defending what, and what their next project might infringe upon. It's broken. It's not really Apple's fault, even if they were the ones to set of Armageddon the system has been screwed up for too long to blame them. Any system that relies on cold war style MAD is going to break down eventually.
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Apple did that to Samsung. Just look at Samsung's patents. I'm very surprised they have not already sued Apple.
--Any system that relies on cold war style MAD is going to break down eventually.--
Yeah, when you get someone totally crazy on the other side.
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My point was two fold (hence the 50/50 split). 1) Crap patents 2) Crap patent system. Picking off crap patents one by one is inefficient but will get the job of eliminating the crap patents done eventually. The larger problem is the patent system. It's the system that let everyone sit in a Mexican standoff for 20 years, which is what has eventually led to the situation we see today.
And BTW, please at least look at someone's comment history before accusing them of shilling. It's one thing to accuse guy
Re:Legal Risk (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, if there's a legal hazard in using Android, maybe that means Google/manufacturer's should license patents from Microsoft (or others). I know the current belief on /. is that everybody should be able to make whatever they want, even if they copy someone else's work but, ignoring whether or not I agree with that view, that's simply not how the world works. Sorry - it isn't. The world works such that, if you invent it and you patent it, you have the right to get paid when someone else uses it (or outright block them from using it for a time). You may not like that, and many don't, but that's how the world works. Not just the US - the world. Google may view that as a problem but the solution is simple - build Android so that it doesn't infringe on any patents or license the patents so that there's no legal risk.
I know I'll be in the minority on this one but, sorry - the system is what the system is. It's simple, design around the patent or license it. Or don't and deal with the consequences.
Software patents are not valid in Europe, so no, this is not the way the "world" works. It is the way the U.S. works, but only since 1981. Prior to that year (and for a practical purposes the early 90's) software patents were expressly forbade by the USPTO and the Supreme Court. The definition of patentable material has expanded immensely in the last 30 years in US. Europe has been drifting toward allowing software patents, but the debate is as fierce there as it is here.
With the U.S. Supreme Court recently reasserting itself into the patent debate, this is a great time for Google to push against software patents and Europe is the place to start.
Re:Legal Risk (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe the patent system *itself* is being abused - bad patents are too prevalent and it costs to much to fight frivolous claims.
Why live with a bad system just because it is? Is it wrong to fight for a better society that is more fair and can provide better incentives to create works?
Re:Legal Risk (Score:4, Insightful)
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Google can continue to live in a dream world and pay the price of ignoring patents
What are you talking about, man? Google already licenses a ton of patents and that's not what this is even about anyway. This is about an anti-trust complaint that happens to involve patents.
Re:Legal Risk (Score:4, Insightful)
I just don't get the same impression of the people at Google, or Slashdot for that matter. While a few people on Slashdot are against the concept of intellectual property, the vast majority of those opposed to software patents and 100 year copyright terms do support the concept of intellectual property. As for Google, they are certainly pro intellectual property, but they too strike out at the structure of the current system.
I see the debate as really between two world views on intellectual property. One side believes that intellectual property is akin to physical property and exists primarily to enrich its owners (for example, Florian Mueller recently compared IP to real estate). The other side believes that intellectual property is primarily for the benefit of society and that the enrichment of its owners is valid if and only if the benefits of innovation outweigh the costs to society. If you fall into the former, then the expansion of patents is just the strengthening of property rights. If you fall into the latter, then the expansion of patents is only valid if it results in increases in innovation for society at large. For software patents, the latter camp believes them to be a net hindrance to innovation and therefore invalid (whether or not someone makes money off of them becomes irrelevant).
Subtle ad? (Score:5, Funny)
"they may opt instead for Microsoft's Windows Phone software"
No one is going to do that.
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Yeah just like "Nobody will opt for Microsoft Explorer because Netscape has 90% of the browser share!"
Oh wait.
Nvrmnd.
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Not really. If it is perceived that Google phones are insecure or too-costly to own, Microsoft phones could easily win over the consumers just as Microsoft browser convinced people to switch from Netscape browser in the late 90s/early 2000s.
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If it is perceived that Google phones are insecure or too-costly to own, Microsoft phones could easily win over the consumers just as Microsoft browser convinced people to switch from Netscape browser in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Except people didn't switch to Internet Explorer because they perceived Netscape as too costly or insecure. By the time Netscape had lost it was due to the fact that IE was being bundled with windows as the default and Netscape 4 was a catastrophe. Furthermore, the market forces in play right now between the competing smartphone platforms is very different than what were at play during the (first) browser wars. There is no specific parallel that can be drawn between the two that isn't also general betwee
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IE is -- once you've made an OS choice, which is often made for reasons entirely irrelevant to web browser -- opt-out rather than opt-in.
Not the same thing as a smartphone OS.
Welcome to SCO 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
Same agenda, only now the desktop isn't at stake, it is the mobile market sector. Same FUD, different day. Linux was proven and hardened after SCO, but in many ways it was too late, the tech world had moved on. MS is hoping for more of the same.
Re:Welcome to SCO 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that right now, they are driving up the real cost of Android phones, making money from it, and spreading FUD. It should be quite clear after the B&N screw-up that what they're doing is extortion.
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Don't worry, if history is any indication the USDoJ will catch Microsoft red-handed for this only ten years from now and at a cost of only tens or hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Of course, if history is any indication, Microsoft will be let off the hook without penalties by whoever is sitting where Ashcroft was sitting last time.
I adore that one of the big bad guys in Freelancer is named Ashcroft.
Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see redHat, Suse, Canonical, etc do the same thing over the UEFI controls coming up. That really needs to be taken out of their hands.
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This is why I like Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully someone will listen to their complaint before they are forced to take matters into their own hands.
And I think everyone also sees the next step, which is retaliation. Google just bought all those Motorola patents, and having them shut down Nokia and Apple with all those 17-year-old cell phone patents would really be a step up in the Mutually-Assured-Destruction conflict, and everyone would suffer for it.
Taking this approach with the nukes in your back pocket seems much more civil than approach taken by the others.
Re:This is why I like Google (Score:5, Insightful)
The patent row between motorola and microsoft began even before google considered buying motorola. And the motorola buyout by google was more in response to microsoft suing android phone makers so google went after motorola's phone patents before anyone else (microsoft) could grab it to add to their warchest.
Talking purely patents, cross licensing sucks too because it locks out new players from the playing field. What we need is the abolishment of all patents or the reduction to their lifetime to a very short period.
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Just so we're clear, how long are you giving them to drop that lawsuit?
Never mind the fact that they signed off on the lawsuit as part of the acquisition.
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My problem with that statement is it presumes that all companies took offensive positions at an equal rate. More often than not, some companies on your list initiated the lawsuits instead of cross-licensing, while others primarily sued in retaliation.
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You mean like them manipulating their search results to catch microsoft red handed stealing their hard work? https://www.google.com/search?q=bing+copying+google [google.com]?
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But Microsoft is suing them directly (Score:3)
Microsoft is suing Motorola (now Google) directly. Why the hell would they hide if they already do it openly and even if they do hide behind other companies how is this illegal? Can't a company pay another company to take care of patent fights?
Re:But Microsoft is suing them directly (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't do it openly. Ask microsoft which patents android infringes and THEY WILL NOT TELL YOU. Every android phone maker that has paid the blackmail money^h^h^h settled has also had to sign a non disclosure statement. This is either because microsoft doesnt want the other phonemakers it hasnt gone after yet to create a workaround^h^h^h not infringe or because microsoft knows it's standing is very weak.
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This is how they get patent deals but not how they sue. You can't possibly sue someone without showing what you've got in court. After all how will the jury decide if you don't show your patents? That's the whole point of a lawsuit. The patents MS holds against Motorola are well known and you can easily Google for them. Something with syncrhonizing e-mails, battery power blah blah blah.
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If you have to deal with only one case or one opponent, instead of a whole swarm of lawsuits and troll companies, expenses go down and things become easier to manage, plus the uncertainity involved (a key element of FUD) also goes down.
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That's good point but aren't the expenses for the attacker also going up if they have to file multiple lawsuits?
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Many jurisdictions have regulations (either as part of the antitrust regime, or their patent regime, or both) which restrict how a patent holder can use a patent to create or protect market power in a market broader than "things that exercise the patent". Assigning patent enforcement rights to a third-party, while itself generally legitimate, can be a manner to obscure an attempt to
Business as usual (Score:3, Insightful)
The threat is that if phone makers perceive a significant legal risk in using Android, they may opt instead for Microsoft's Windows Phone software."
What part of this is illegal? Isn't this how patents are supposed to work?
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"Perception of risk" != "Existence of risk". Using agents to incite riots in a mass gathering (say, by pelting stones) is an extreme example of what's happening here. The harm in pelting those stones is limited to non-existant, but the people don't see it that way and the end result is much worse.
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That's just marketing. Business as usual.
Can't take this seriously. (Score:2, Troll)
Googles thinks Microsoft is sending proxies (Score:2)
Microsoft hasn't shown any problems going after Android makers openly and directly. Sure it doesn't always make the front page but that's because Microsoft wants to licence the technology, not use the patents to block companies from the market entirely like Apple. This has always been Microsoft's business stategy from all the back in the days when it was Bill writing BASIC inter
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If Apple blocks android, more people would likely flock to ios. If microsoft did the same to android they would only be giving apple more customers. windows mobile is stuck in a chicken and a egg situation where it has a low uptake due to few apps and few apps because few use their phones. If windows mobile had more market share we would probably start seeing microsoft doing what apple is doing now.
glad to see someone call MS on it (Score:2)
They've been getting away with it for a while. Check out the situation with Dual Shock on the PS3.
Immersion decides to patent troll the gaming industry over rumble force feedback, claiming they have the patents on it even though as a corporation they eschewed simple "rumble".
So MS settles with Immersion, giving Immersion money with the requirement that they continue to press their case against Sony and that MS will get a cut of any monies from those suits if there is a settlement.
We find out about it when M
Re:Hey (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but what? When has Google ever used patent trolls? To the contrary, Google has fought patent trolls more aggressively than any tech company.
Re:Hey (Score:5, Insightful)
You do know what an antitrust complaint is about don't you? It's not about having a monopoly, it's about abusing one. When has Google abused its search monopoly?
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The huge ad that says "Suft the net faster: USE CHROME NOW" on youtube.com and google.com seem a bit of an abuse IMHO.
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Re:Hey (Score:4, Insightful)
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One of Google's updates to PageRank did downrank so-called vertical search engines. They kind of needed too because they were effectively rendering search unusable - you'd search for information or reviews about some product and just get page after page of links to searches on other websites, most of which hadn't managed to find anything. It made trying to use Google an exercise in frustration that reminded me of the bad old days and why the other search engines lost out to them in the first place. Honestly
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> Lets not name some other company who made it difficult for others to install certain browsers on their OS, and kind of forced you to use their own browser.
Apple? If not, then some references please. Netscape basically scored a self goal with the rewrite from 4.0 taking too long. Stop rewriting history.
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People can always use Bing! Google has the right to present their search results as they please, just like Microsoft does. I'm not saying they actually doctored them, as you claim, but that I expect the results to pro-Google.
Also, Google does no evil.
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Awesome link. I love random links.
Do you have one that shows Google abusing its monopoly though?
Re:Hey (Score:4, Insightful)
Typical Slashdot Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
> Because last I checked this specific anti-trust complaint is about Nokia and Microsoft backing patent trolls.
Did you really check it? Or are you just wearing your fanboy blinders?
They're an investor in the biggest patent troll around, Intellectual Ventures.
http://www.iam-magazine.com/blog/Detail.aspx?g=2f9ac708-83af-42b9-9d3d-5fdf39fdc482 [iam-magazine.com]
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Not to mention that it's just Nokia(which had a huge role in inventing cellphone and related technologies) reacting to Google dumping it's product Android on the market for free by using it's search monopoly profits.
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Open source projects are now dumping? Nice theory you have there. Andriod was created because Nokia's OS efforts were a catastrophic fucking failure. Andriod's agile open development model turned out to be superior to Nokia's slow, closed model.
That said, open source android is just a base. Google's real android product is a suite of useful premium services that get distributed and accessed on Google's terms, to earn ad revenue. These services run on the android base. You are free to build a phone with or
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Android is not really a regular OSS project like Linux or Firefox. Development happens behind secret closed doors and some OEMs get special early access. And when the Nexus device is released to the market(not one day before that), the code is dumped over a wall to the general public and other OEMs who then get into a mad scramble to work on it(no wonder updates to existing OEM phones take ~8 months after the Nexus device) . Contrast that with Linux, Firefox etc. where you can compile the nightlies or even
Re:Typical Slashdot Bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
>They invested in "Defendant Invention Investment Fund I." which is an investment fund that invested in IV.
Umm no. That fund is completely a part of IV. IV has various funds, and Google invested only in that fund. It's not like an general investment fund or mutual fund. And Google's investment was only revealed in a lawsuit or it would be hidden even now, just like Google wants it to be. Who's twisting the truth now?
Why don't you get an account(or login to your real account) and dare to stand behind your posts instead of hiding like a coward taking potshots at me? Or are you a Google shill or employee trying to spin the facts and posting anonymously to hide?
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I think I need to filter ACs from even showing up as replies, please get an account and dare to stand by what you say.
>Do you think Google or any other investor can just waltz into IV and tell them what and what not to do?
I did not say that Google told IV to do anything, just that they're an investor in IV.
>Do you have any emails/phone calls/documents of Google giving specific reasoning as to why they invested in this particular fund? It is equally possible that Google is taking a "know thy enemy" app
Re:Hey (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hey (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, blaming Google for the actions started years ago of a company they literally bought last week is sure to prove your argument.
Microsoft and Apple have pledged to license standards-essential patents on FRAND terms and not to seek injunctions and stays based on them, Google refused to do so to the EU.
Also, did Slashdot run a story about Apple and MS filing antitrust complaint again Motorola?
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/253083/european_commission_opens_antitrust_investigation_of_motorola_mobility.html [pcworld.com]
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microsoft is so greedy (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only do they extract out of android phone makers many times more than make from their own windows phones but now they want to extract cash out of google as well.
If miscrosoft spent less time sabotaging, suing and backstabbing their partners and more time innovating and focussing on their own products, maybe their company would experience more growth. Only then would it be able to turn its reputation around like IBM has.
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Actually, Google's complaint appears to be that MS is arming its proxies to attack Android phone makes to extract more money out of them (that includes Google now that Google owns Motorola Mobility, but the strategy at issue is an extension of MS's attack-the-handset-manufacturers strategy, not a shift to target Google-as-software-vendor.)
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Apple is in the process of having HTC complaints against them dismissed by the ITC due to lack of standing. It seems that Google transferred five patents key to HTC complaint just prior to the filing with the ITC (less than week). The ITC hasn't ruled on Apple's motion, but it indicates that HTC is acting as Google's proxy in this matter.
Feel free to google it.
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You claimed that, but pointed to evidence of Google supporting HTC only after Apple attacked HTC as a proxy for Google. That is, while there is a sense that HTC is a proxy for Google in the Apple-Google patent war, its because Apple choose to make HTC such a proxy by attacking HTC as a way of attacking Android, not because Google made them a proxy.
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"Seeking to have" rather than "having" would be more accurate.
Actually, what it shows is that when Apple launched a patent attack on HTC over importing devices using Google
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Here the links for stories discussing HTC acting as Google's proxy:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/09/google-to-htc-take-these-patents-keep-fighting-apple/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-07/htc-sues-apple-alleging-infringement-of-four-u-s-patents.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57435572-37/apple-wants-to-squelch-five-google-patents-issued-to-htc/