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Google Says Opening Up Its App Store Is Expensive And Too Much Work, Gets Told By Judge, 'We're Going To Tear The Barriers Down' (www.benzinga.com)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Judge James Donato intends to dismantle Google’s Android app store monopoly, following an earlier ruling declaring it illegal.
Google argued that opening its store to competitors would be too costly and complex, but the judge dismissed this claim, emphasizing that barriers will be removed.
Proposed remedies include banning discriminatory practices against rival app stores and setting up a committee to monitor compliance and report regularly.

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[–] [email protected] 315 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (37 children)

So, you’ve always been able to sideload apps on Android, Google is just using unfair practices to stop other people’s app stores from being popular.

When does this ruling affect Apple, who actually has a monopoly on their store?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You've always been able to side load apps you are correct.

However, this is not what Google wants. Over the years, Google has started to enforce more restrictions on third-party applications. They've been slowly making these options more difficult to find in the settings of certain OEMs. Just because they give you the freedom, doesn't always mean they care.

But yes you are correct that Apples monopoly on their app store is way worse. But Google would absolutely remove more user choice settings if certain things like the GPL didn't stand in the way of the Android OS.

If Android had never been open-sourced, they would absolutely not have any options for third party installations mark my words.

They only thing standing in their way is Linux and the GPL.

Google is just as malicious as Apple. They are just better at hiding it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Google is just as malicious as Apple. They are just better at hiding it.

I feel like they came from a position where that wasn't immediately transitionable.
Even tho Apple comes from a BSD background, it seems like Google was more core to the internet and open-source background when they first released Android.
Since then, they have slowly transitioned all of their captured market to more closed ecosystems. But they have done it slowly out of fear of shedding their more devoted original followers (I dunno how to phrase that).
These days, I agree that Google is predatory as fuck. In some ways, Google is better than Apple, but Apple is better than Google in others. Neither are clean in regards to user privacy or security.

I really hope the recent rumblings of a lawsuit against Google regarding OS attestation becomes a real thing and goes through. This would allow things like OS projects like GrapheneOS to provide even better user experience. I would hope that this could then be leveraged against iOS.

I can't wait for the plateau where software and hardware is generic enough (well, for phones) that OS and hardware can be actually created by separate projects/companies.

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