The name says it all. Google comes from “Googol”, a term used by mathematicians to identify the format number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Ie a so geeks to tell the infinite. And when, in 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded their search engine, somehow the concept of hegemony already belonged to him.
anto that within a few years, the Mountain View company has begun a policy of acquisitions that has never stopped: up to 2014 more than one hundred companies incorporated by Big G. and so Google today is not only the search engine par excellence, that by adjusting the indexing of content and then establishing what to show when looking for something on the Web has the power to decide what exists and what does not. Today Google is also e-mail (Gmail) and social networks (YouTube and Google +). But above all it is Android, the mobile software. Which, translated, means about 80% of active smartphones and tablets in the world.
When it comes to Android says a whole world, including mobile phones and tablets (from Samsung to LG, passing for all those who are not Apple or Microsoft) but also smart tv and smartwatch. Android, in different versions, is installed on mobile phones from the most different performance, from modest ones to those of high range. This is why the Mountain View company, in response to the European antitrust charges of abuse of dominant position, said that Android is “good for competition” and “an open innovation model.” It is in fact an “open source software”, that any device manufacturer can modify at will. Making it even more vulnerable to cyber attacks, unlike Apple’s iOS, which is a closed software (Google stressed, however, that in 2015 the probability of installing potentially harmful applications on smartphones and tablets with Android operating system has fallen by 40% ).
THE SOFTWARE
This does not mean, however, that Android is free. Because Google provides its software with a package of pre-installed apps. One such feature is the Chrome browser, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Drive cloud service, as well as some (like Hangouts) that many do not even know what the use. App that enclose all major Mountain View services. And this is the node that does not go down to antitrust: These services, offered by default “” users, can damage the developers of similar apps. Who in fact, especially among the less experienced, you would care to download a browser other than Chrome or another service maps? Not to mention that these apps may not even be uninstalled, but at most disabled. Which in the long run, may also contribute to the saturation of the device memory, which is the real bogeyman of all Android users.
A question similar to that of Google poses in 2013 with Microsoft: l ‘ Redmond company, for having “imposed” the Internet Explorer browser on Windows 7 antitrust was sentenced to pay a fine of 561 million dollars. It thought that none of the major hardware manufacturers have had to say sull’invasività the green robot. It must consider in fact that Google has rescued them in what was their main problem: to have an operating system that could be easily adapted to various types of device. The existence of Android allows companies like Samsung (which is still trying to develop its own operating system, Tizen) to have almost zero cost a good quality software. No, these producers could simply no longer be competitive on the market.
OTHER FRONTS
The clash with the EU on Android is just the latest in a long list, for Google. In both locally and globally there are still outstanding issues such as tax evasion or the right to oblivion. In the latter case, according to the New York Times, about 418,000 Cancellation requests received content, Google will only half would have accepted. Not to mention the case of Google News. Yet for now nothing has changed.
andrea.andrei@ilmessaggero.it
Twitter: andreaandrei _
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