Comment by greatgib
15 days ago
Isn't it an editor, an app store or the FSF that would start an antitrust litigation against Google? I would easily do a donation to a fund to do that.
In my opinion, Google is doing that to keep control as there is now the European regulation that said that they can't force manufacturer to install exclusively what Google asks them to "to be certified". So, in theory there could have been big brand smartphones with only the vendor or alternative app store by default anytime soon without this change.
This confuses me. Google uses their closed source apps as leverage in the certification process. If they are no longer able to enforce bundling, then what?
Thinking that you can litigate every matter of user freedom against two ultra-wealthy co-monopolies of mobile OSes is frankly short sighted, if not misguided. They throw around lots of money to lawyers, lobbyists and politicians on every case. They may not win every case. But they don't need to. Each case they win is a step forward for their ambitions of total device control and indefinite money grab. On the other hand, we need to win every case with meager resources to keep our freedoms. At best, this will slightly delay our inevitable surrender to corporate greed.
We really need to get off these abusive rent-seeking spyware platforms and go for something similar to how Linux distros or various BSDs work. The main hurdles are the hardware, drivers and essential applications like banking and transportation. The hardware is an even bigger problem than the OS platform itself. But this is getting desperate. We really have to start moving in that direction before we're left with nothing else.