This is why it's so amazing to me Google has come through largely unscathed for so long. Between their extremely competitive (often free) pricing, and their deals to mandate preinstallation of all of their products on various platforms, it's kinda amazing. If it wasn't for someone previously paid by Google running the FTC for a couple years, I imagine Google would already be facing some pretty hefty charges.
> Between their extremely competitive (often free) pricing, and their deals to mandate preinstallation of all of their products on various platforms, it's kinda amazing
I think someone at Google is secretly grateful for the existence of Amazon's Android fork (FireOS). They can rightly claim: "Android is free and open source - you don't have to take our version if you don't like our T&C's. You can fork your own competing version (that you maintain), like Amazon did"
Oh, I'm sure there's nothing secret about that gratefulness. But it's also trivial to dismiss: The Fire Phone flopped badly. While people buying Kindles mostly just expect to be able to read Kindle books, you cannot sell an Android phone today without the Play Store and be successful.
The law is not like programming, if something is 'technically true', it's probably false as far as the law is concerned. The law is much more concerned in this area with what is 'practical'. It is not 'practical' to fork Android, and operate as a business with it.
>The law is not like programming, if something is 'technically true', it's probably false as far as the law is concerned. The law is much more concerned in this area with what is 'practical'. It is not 'practical' to fork Android, and operate as a business with it.
I've never heard anyone say that, that's really insightful. Can you say some more stuff about law?
