Comment by mkhalil
18 hours ago
Did anyone read this article? The headline is misleading.
It clearly states in the first line:
> "Google’s contract with Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Motorola blocked the smartphone maker from setting Perplexity AI as the default assistant on its new devices"
They didn't block Perplexity AI from Motorola's devices, the agreement states that they allow them to preload the devices with Perplexity, but the agreement, that both parties signed, does not give Motorola the permission to set it as the default.
> "Motorola “can’t get out of their Google obligations and so they are unable to change the default assistant on the device.”
They signed the agreement, and now are going to courts to claim they had no choice.
I understand the premise, that they think they had no choice, but this article is misleading in its headline, and plenty of the comments here clearly show that a lot of "readers" didn't bother to read it.
> they think they had no choice
And they really don't have a choice. if you don't abide by googles terms then they will not permit you to use google mobile services. That means (at the very least):
You cant even use the word "Android" to describe the OS.
Just look at how crippled Amazons fork is. Or how huawei pretty much lost their entire GLOBAL market share because of a US sanction preventing them having a GMS contract.
No matter what anyone says, android IS google. It is so riddled with google specific behaviours you cant use without a license that companies have even ditched android to make their own OS - because they literally aren't allowed to favorably position their own functionality over googles in any way.
The Play services thing is a major deal for banking apps and such. If anyone has tried dealing with third-party ROMs like LineageOS and GrapheneOS, they would know how much Google tries its best to screw you if you leave their gross leech of an ecosystem
Big shout out to Google Play Integrity/Safety Net (or whatever it's currently called).
Was the one thing which ended my couple of years without Google, as my banking apps started banning my phones fingerprint for being insecure.
Seems like in a major part of '''Pax Americana''' is needing to use a Google or Apple fingerprint to participate in society. Makes you laugh when people whinge about China.
Attesting that a closed source device meets arbitrary closed source standards is a necessary evil.
One real world problem is that some existing systems are built relying on the integrity of the components within, i.e. BART in the bay area relies on the BART cards being honest and secure. If iPhones are to be allowed into the system, they also have to be honest and secure.
The capability is being over-used and abused, and we should design systems to never need it, but some do.
In Europe, banking apps block root but still work on a custom OS (like LineageOS) without contactless payments. I guess this is because many people here buy Chinese phones and they just can't ignore them.
Related: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2025/04/a9b0beb4443a-urge...
> Just look at how crippled Amazons fork is
What has Google done to stop Amazon here?
...literally all the things listed in the comment you're replying to.
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They blocked Perplexity via agreements, amongst many agreements to fortify their monopoly, the legality of which has been challenged in court and this testimony is to demonstrate that this agreement also belongs in the "illegal" bucket.
Google Cloud has also gotten a huge boost from large retailers who, understandably, don't want to run their software on Amazon owned AWS.
When I asked out of curiosity why not Azure, especially given that these companies almost all use Office, Teams, Outlook, etc. several have told me it's because of Google Shopping and SEO. Though never formally stated or part of the contract it's often mentioned by Google that "They already have a relationship" with these companies via the feeds they provide for those products. And there are consistent talking point among the GCP sales reps about how they "help deliver you customers" and you "shouldn't fund a competitor".
Obviously not the same thing but it does indicate that Google isn't afraid to leverage their search monopoly in the other parts of their business.
> And there are consistent talking point among the GCP sales reps about how they "help deliver you customers" and you "shouldn't fund a competitor".
I wonder how much of it is Google asking them to do that, versus quotas and incentives that make anything else untenable.
The latter is a well-known phenomenon, if your sales reps are under enough pressure, they will eventually resort to illegal tactics that make your company look bad, even if they're never explicitly told to do so.
Another way to look at this is through an evolutionary lens; the salesmen that do the right thing can't possibly perform as well as those that don't, so they're fired / never promoted. It's not that all salesmen are evil, it's that, in such an environment, only the evil ones have a chance, all without managements knowledge or approval.
HSBC is the most famous example where this happened, to the point of their bank employees knowingly assisting gangs and cartels in laundering money.
I doubt it's because of that. Being a user of those msft products like Teams, it is more likely that they don't want another msft product if they can avoid it. why would you want bugs on top of bugs?
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I think that's most likely something that some sales guy came up with on his own.
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This is wildly wrong. Ever since the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 (1) companies are forbidden from using monopoly powers to force other parties to sign deals, which is the question about which Perplexity is testifying- whether Google is using it's market monopoly power in one area (cell phone operating systems) to force other companies to sign deals that unfairly hurt competitors in a different market (AI assistants). And that's been illegal for a very long time.
1: Named for John Sherman, General William Sherman's younger brother, who was a Senator from Ohio. That's how long this law has been around!
Google could be running foul of antitrust laws if forcing Gemini as default on Android OEM's is part of the standard contract required to use the Android brand.
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You mean like two people agreeing to sell drugs to each other? Organs? Prostitution?
mmm, which part of the constitution? I remember one explicit delegation to the federal government of the cross border trade, plus a long list of items that people are forbidden from trading freely, plus, recently, a long list of items where the government meddles by imposing taxes on imported trade.
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True, but this just added extra visibility to the anti trust case
It’s a little oversimplified, but I wouldn’t call it misleading.
There is little point to getting an app like perplexity AI pre-installed on a phone as a non-default. Changing defaults isn’t exactly trivial, and any user motivated enough to go through that will have no problems installing the app from the App Store.
So of course the deal fell through.
And it’s accurate to say that “Google blocked a deal to put Perplexity AI on Motorola phones”, and highly monopolistic.
Though… as an end user and occasional family tech support person, I’m thankful for anything that reduces pre-installed bloatware on phones. Thanks google.
> I’m thankful for anything that reduces pre-installed bloatware on phones
Except that I still get all the google bloatware on my phone.
On my pixel, GrapheneOS has 2x the battery life of factory android.
Of course, most commercial apps won’t run due to Google’s monopolistic bullshit. You can partially fix it by installing (sandboxed) google play services, but that halves the battery life back to what stock android gets.
> They signed the agreement, and now are going to courts to claim they had no choice.
Did the title change? They (Lenovo) are going to court? This is an antitrust case against Google and the witness is not part of the agreement signed. Is Lenovo suing Google?
The title is representing the witness (perplexity) stance, not Lenovo's. And given it's a antitrust suit it seems like a very valid stance.
Read it again perhaps? Without any of that context, it just reads like "google blocked [some/all] use of Perplexity AI on [some/all] Motorola devices"
Try not to overthink it.
Even rereading the whole thread I don't get what is misleading. Google and Motorola signed an agreement, and it blocks Motorola from using Perplexity as its core search engine.
Saying Google has no part in this would be wrong, and the fact that the agreement was mutual doesn't change the restrictions.
Sure a contract was signed, but as has been pointed out many times about Google's heavy-handed control over Android, it doesn't mean it was fair to all parties:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...
Given the recent judgements about Google's anticompetitive behavior in multiple other arenas, revisiting these licensing agreements seems justified.
> Sure a contract was signed, but as has been pointed out many times about Google's heavy-handed control over Android, it doesn't mean it was fair to all parties:
The article is basically saying "if you don't use Play store and Google apps you'll have to build them yourself". I don't really understand - yes? You would have to. But you still got a load of stuff free. You only have to build apps on top. You get a working OS for free still, which is incredibly valuable.
> The article is basically saying "if you don't use Play store and Google apps you'll have to build them yourself".
The article says a lot more. A key point about the Open Handset Alliance, OHA (emphasis theirs):
"If a company does ever manage to fork AOSP, clone the Google apps, and create a viable competitor to Google's Android, it's going to have a hard time getting anyone to build a device for it. In an open market, it would be as easy as calling up an Android OEM and convincing them to switch, but Google is out to make life a little more difficult than that. ...
The OHA is a group of companies committed to Android—Google's Android—and members are contractually prohibited from building non-Google approved devices. That's right, joining the OHA requires a company to sign its life away and promise to not build a device that runs a competing Android fork."
Android is open source and Google play services is technically possible to avoid. What other major operating system vendor for consumer electronics goes out of their way to make this sort of thing possible? Apple and Microsoft sure don't.
If you read the article I linked and many of the criticisms in these comments (not to mention TFA) smartphone vendors need to cede a huge amount of control to Google to have a viable product. As such, the open source aspect of Android is just a very effective distraction from the anti-competitive practices that Google has been plying with it.
Legally or illegally? If you don't care about doing it legally, sure you can make a stub Google play service and fake the device integrity by extracting certificates from other devices.
If you care about the laws though you cannot really get rid of the play services.
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Most online journalism relies on clickbait, and they know people aren't going to read too much past the headline to care (and 99% of threads on sites like HN clearly demonstrate that).
You should just say 99% of material, because it has nothing to do with the "type" of site, what you're talking about is just a human behavior.
"The very basis of interhuman discourse is misunderstanding"
well at least it is new information unlike your statement.
Google has a monopoly on Android services and app distribution that the used to effectively force them to sign it. Literally not having a choice isn't the only way to be coerced to agree.
Calling the Google Apps agreement something phone vendors voluntarily agreed to is pedantic, reductive and useless. Yes, technically they didn't get physically forced into it, but that's not the whole story.
Google used their unimaginably deep pockets and several monopolies to make sure that no phone without Google Apps will sell. Look at what happened to Huawei after Trump's ban - there were articles in even mainstream media about how people are buying the P10 (was it?), starting it up, realizing nothing works and trying to return it. And literally the only reason that "nothing worked" was that it didn't have Google Play services.
As a device maker if Google or Apple demands that you jump, you jump.
They are essentially being strongarmed by the duopoly.
If Lenovo wants preferential terms they have to sign.
If i remember correctly, it was similar argument when Microsoft in similar way blocked other browsers' pre-install - "if Dell wants to be MS Windows preferred partner ...". And ultimately that argument didn't fly. Though unfortunately a huge irreparable damage was still done.
Google is a convicted monopolist, so it has to play by different rules.
You could have simply written "I have no idea what anti-trust is all about", and saved yourself a lot of words.