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Google has been accused of dominating the market and violating antitrust laws and fined $ 5 billion. What will be the consequences for business users, and if there is an alternative, says the EP.
It's hard to reassess Google's place in the lives of anyone using the Internet. Everyone knows the company, its search engine is used by about 90% of users, a little less – mail and maps, a little less than – browser and cloud storage.
Google has even become synonymous with "research". "Cuddling" – they will say in response to the ignorance of obvious things, and not "Be so kind, find this information on the Internet."
July 18, 2018 techno-giant has been accused of dominating the market and violating anti-monopoly legislation. The European Commission has imposed a record fine of 4.34 billion euros or 5 billion dollars to the company
Anti-competitive Practices
The EU said that Google's actions have hindered competition in the market since they have not pursued further development. "Anti-competitive practices" are associated with three areas of business activity.
First, the company forced manufacturers to install the Google Chrome search engine on all Android-based smartphones.
Second, Google paid the mobile phone manufacturers and mobile operators for the installation of the Google search engine
Third, the company banned the use of Android versions created on the basis of l & # 39; Open source
According to Margret Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, Google has used Android as a tool to dominate its search engine.
Google does not agree with the prosecution and plans to challenge it. According to Google CEO Sandra Pichai, Android is creating a variety rather than depressing it.
This is not the first good company. A year ago, the EC imposed a fine of 2.42 billion euros on Google for abuse of dominant position in the search engine market. Then, the search engine preferred its Google Shopping service to search for products on the Internet.
Life After a Fine
If Google can not sue, users will have to install all the apps themselves on their new phone.
According to the representatives of the company, it is a useless blunder. get out of the box and use it right away. The European Commission believes that this will allow users to discover other applications that might be more relevant to them.
Google has also hinted that Android could now be paid. It is expected that monetization of OS and partial recovery of a fine start to borrow money to install Android with Google's proprietary services, or make the system paying everyone, which will result in a reasonable increase in the price of smartphones. for content on the game market.
However, according to experts, even this position is hardly shaky from Google, whose services have become popular, widespread and familiar to the user.
Say no to Google?
The fact that Google is a monopoly and should be fought with it is considered not only by the European Commission, but also, for example, by journalist Nitin Kok. He decided to completely abandon Google products by replacing them with alternative services.
"Like most, I became a victim of Google's distribution." After the search, there was mail, documents, analysis, photos, and dozens of other services. a company that produces useful products, Google has become a company that has attracted all the Internet in its data collection and monetization system, "says Coca
a journalist spent six months studying Analogs.-The search can be replaced by DuckDuckGo or StartPage.These search engines take care of the privacy of the users and do not collect history or other data.However, they have difficulties with the non-English queries, which complicates the task for Ukraine.
It is suggested that Google Chrome be replaced by Mozilla Firefox It was created by a non-profit fund that works to protect personal data of the ut By the way, it is not recommended to use the very popular Opera browser in Ukraine because it works on Chrome.
An alternative to Google Maps may be Here WeGo for a computer, although for some reason there are some countries in the service, for example, Japan and Maps.me for the smartphone.
It should be noted that offline maps work in the latter even better than on Google maps, but there may be problems with the browser. However, Maps.me is a Russian product belonging to Mail.ru Group.
Hangouts or Google Chat is better to replace with more secure messengers – Signal or Telegram
Most Google services are free, since companies are gaining on user data, so alternatives to some Google services are paying off . 19659002] Thus, an alternative to Gmail that protects your personal data may be ProtonMail. Its servers are located in Switzerland, a country with strict privacy laws.
ProtonMail is the most convenient in terms of user transition, since its interface is similar to Gmail. However, the free version only includes 500 MB of space for letters, the extension will have to pay extra.
Another option – Fastmail. This resource is less confidential, but also has a user-friendly interface.
According to Coca, finding an alternative to Google Calendar was the hardest thing. It has staggered on the Fastmail calendar, but you can try the organizers, there are many.
Alternative to Google Drive may be NextCloud – a suite of applications for storing and synchronizing contacts, calendar, documents and files in the cloud. Other options include OwnCloud, Openstack, or paid versions of Dropbox and Box.
With regard to the Android OS, there is a duopoly in the world of smartphones – Google's Android and Apple's iOS
. , although technically difficult. The best option, according to the author, is LineageOS – an open version of Android that can be installed without additional services and without Google applications. That is to say that it can be the same for Android itself in 90 days.
Google monopolist: can I hide? updated on July 27, 2018 by author: Redactor
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