Chillin'Competition

The competition news of  the past couple of days have just been confirmed. The European Commission has annnounced that it has addressed Google and its parent company Alphabet a Statement of Objections regarding its Android mobile operating system and apps. The Commission’s press release is available here.

Here are all of the previous posts that Pablo and I have written on the case. In the light of today’s press release they would still appear to be relevant and valid:

• Some thoughs on the new anti-Google Android complaint (Introduction)

• Some tthoughts on the new-anti-Google Android complaint (predatory pricing)

• Some thoughts on the new anti-Google Android complaint (Bundling allegations)

• Modularity and competition for bundles; is à la carte Android à la carte enough?

• More on Android (includes presentations on the case positing contrarian views, including one by Microsoft’s lawyer in the case)

• On Icomp, Android and blogging neutrality (or the game of the hidden puns)

• A comment on the Microsoft/Skype Judgment (although not directly related to this case, it dealt with many of the issues relevant to it. It seems I was among the few who read it attentively and took it seriously…).

• Also, you should check out this recent piece on “Systemic Efficiencies in Competition Law: Evidence from the ICT Industry” by Konstantinos Stylianou (who did the Harvard LLM with me and who is now at the University of Leeds).

P.S. 1- We have some new ideas on the bundling aspect of the case, but we still need to decide whether these should be “open source” or “licenseable” 😉

P.S. 2- In addition to the bundling allegations discussed in our posts above, the press relese refers to two other challenged practices concerning the anti-fragmentation policy and alleged exclusivity arrangements. These are new to us and we don’t yet have a view on them.