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mikemortgage · 5 years

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump camp suggests AG found illegal spying

WASHINGTON — With release of the special counsel’s fuller report looming, President Donald Trump and his campaign are twisting the words of his attorney general and the facts of the Russia investigation.

His 2020 campaign is telling supporters in fundraising pitches that Attorney General William Barr had revealed illegal spying against Trump during the 2016 presidential race. But it’s not true. While Barr told lawmakers that he believed spying took place, he never concluded it was illegal and made clear several times he was not suggesting a crime had occurred.

Meanwhile, Trump kept up his refrain that special counsel Robert Mueller had totally exonerated him despite Mueller’s exact quotes in Barr’s summary that he did not. A redacted version of Mueller’s full report is expected in the coming days.

The misstatements were among a number of factual faux pas and flips in rhetoric this past week.

With his government seeking to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Trump seemed to draw a blank on a hacking organization he praised to the rafters during the 2016 campaign because of the discomfort it caused his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

And speaking before Monday’s tax filing deadline, Trump seemed to change the grounds upon which he is refusing to release his taxes: It’s not because he can’t, but because he doesn’t want to.

A look at the claims:

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

TRUMP CAMPAIGN: “Just this week, Attorney General William Barr said what the President has thought all along, he believes ‘unlawful spying did occur’ against Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign.” — fundraising email sent Saturday to Trump supporters.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN: “AG Barr believes the Obama Admin illegally spied on Pres Trump.” — text sent Friday to Trump supporters.

THE FACTS: The email puts words in Barr’s mouth and seeks to raise money in doing so.

Barr never said there was illegal spying.

During a Senate hearing Wednesday, the attorney general actually made clear he had no specific evidence to cite that any surveillance was illegal or improper.

“I think spying did occur,” Barr told lawmakers. “But the question is whether it was adequately predicated and I’m not suggesting it wasn’t adequately predicated, but I need to explore that.”

He later added: “I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred. I am saying that I am concerned about it and looking into it.”

——

TRUMP: “I’ve been totally exonerated. No collusion. No obstruction.” — remarks Wednesday at the White House.

TRUMP: “I’m not concerned about anything, because frankly there was no collusion and there was no obstruction.” — remarks Thursday with South Korea’s president.

THE FACTS: Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s nearly 400-page report did not “totally” exonerate Trump. Mueller specifically states in the report, as quoted by Barr: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

The summary of principal conclusions by Barr, released in late March, notes Mueller did not “draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction,” but rather set out evidence for both sides, leaving the question unanswered of whether Trump obstructed justice. Barr said ultimately he decided as attorney general that the evidence developed by Mueller was “not sufficient” to establish, for the purposes of prosecution, that Trump committed obstruction.

In Senate testimony Wednesday, Barr acknowledged that Mueller did not ask him to draw a conclusion on the obstruction question, nor did he know whether Mueller agreed with him. Barr said he would be able to explain more fully after releasing a public version of Mueller’s report.

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WIKILEAKS

TRUMP, asked if he still “loves” WikiLeaks: “I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It’s not my thing.” — remarks Thursday with South Korea’s president.

THE FACTS: WikiLeaks was very much Trump’s thing in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, when candidate Trump showered praise on the anti-secrecy organization night after night.

On the same October day that the “Access Hollywood” tape emerged, revealing that Trump had bragged in 2005 about groping women, WikiLeaks began releasing damaging emails from Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. Trump and his allies seized on the dumps and weaponized them.

“WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks,” Trump said in Pennsylvania.

“This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove,” Trump said in Michigan.

“Boy, I love reading WikiLeaks,” Trump said in Ohio.

All told, Trump extolled WikiLeaks more than 100 times, and a poster of Assange hung backstage at the Republican’s debate war room. At no point from a rally stage did Trump express any misgivings about how WikiLeaks obtained the emails from the Clinton campaign or about the accusations of stealing sensitive U.S. government information, which led to the charges against Assange on Thursday. The U.S. is seeking Assange’s extradition from Britain.

Asked Sunday about Trump’s claim he knew nothing about Wikileaks, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told Fox News the president “was making a joke during the campaign and was talking about the specifics of the case at that moment.”

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TAX RETURNS

TRUMP: “As you know, I got elected last time with this same issue. … I would love to give them, but I’m not going to do it while I’m under audit.” — remarks Wednesday to reporters at the White House.

THE FACTS: Nothing’s preventing Trump from releasing his tax returns.

Being under audit is no legal bar to anyone releasing his or her returns.

Asked repeatedly at a House hearing Tuesday whether any regulation prohibited a taxpayer from disclosing returns when under audit, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig responded “no.”

Trump declined to provide his tax information as a candidate in 2016 and as president, something party nominees have traditionally done in the name of the transparency. By withholding his tax returns, Trump has not followed the standard followed by presidents since Richard Nixon started the practice in 1969. During the campaign, Trump said he wanted to release his returns but because he was under a routine audit, “I can’t.”

After the November midterm elections, Trump claimed at a news conference that the filings are too complex for people to understand.

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JOB APPROVAL

TRUMP, tweeting a Fox Business Network graphic showing his “soaring approval” at 55% overall: “Great news! #MAGA” — tweet Thursday.

THE FACTS: The graphic on the Georgetown University poll was incorrect: The poll found 55% had an “unfavourable” rating of Trump, not his job approval, from a different poll question. Fox Business issued an on-air correction but Trump’s tweet remains.

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CLIMATE CHANGE

TRUMP: “We withdrew the United States from the one-sided Paris climate accord, where you don’t do any more drilling for oil and gas. That was going to cost us a lot of money. No more oil and gas with the Paris accord. That’s good for Paris, but that’s not good for us. Right?” — remarks Wednesday at a ceremony for the signing of executive orders meant to accelerate pipeline construction.

THE FACTS: Wrong. The Paris accord does not ban any form of energy development. It does not impose emission caps on signatory countries. The accord is a set of voluntary targets determined by individual nations.

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IMMIGRATION

TRUMP: “Mexico must apprehend all illegals and not let them make the long march up to the United States, or we will have no other choice than to Close the Border and/or institute Tariffs. Our Country is FULL!” — tweet April 7.

THE FACTS: Despite the overwhelmed southern border, there’s plenty of room in the United States. Dozens of countries have greater population density. It’s only full in terms of the people Trump doesn’t want.

His claim of a U.S. with no vacancies for more immigrants is at odds with his own statement two months ago that encouraged “the largest” influx of legal immigrants ever. It also belies a U.S. reality of aging baby boomers and falling birth rates, which make immigrants increasingly important to sustain a level of population growth for the U.S. economy to keep expanding.

The nation’s population growth is at its lowest since 1937, with the 18-and-under population declining both nationally and in 29 states, according to William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution. Economists say that restricting immigration would probably weaken economic growth. A shrinking labour force could also harm the health and stability of safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Trump himself seemed to acknowledge the realities during his State of the Union address in February, declaring, “I want people to come into our country, in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally.” He’s now describing a U.S. bursting at the seams, unable to take any immigrants, including those seeking legal asylum.

Immigrants as a whole make up a greater percentage of the total U.S. population than they did back in 1970, having grown from less than 5 per cent of the population to more than 13 per cent now. In 2030, it’s projected that immigrants will become the primary driver for U.S. population growth, overtaking U.S. births.

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TRUMP on separating migrant children from their parents when caught crossing into the U.S. illegally: “I’m the one that stopped it. President Obama had child separation.” — remarks to reporters Tuesday.

THE FACTS: No, he’s the one who started it on a broad scale. He instituted a “zero tolerance” policy aimed at criminally prosecuting all adults caught crossing into the U.S. illegally. That meant detention for adults and the removal of their children while their parents were in custody. During the Obama administration and the early Trump administration, such family separations were the exception. They became the rule under his policy. He suspended the practice in June because of a public uproar.

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TRUMP on the family separations: “President Obama had the law. We changed the law, and I think the press should accurately report it but of course they won’t.” — remarks to reporters Tuesday.

THE FACTS: This is false. Trump did not achieve any change in the law.

Trump’s zero-tolerance policy was of his own making. His administration is operating under the same immigration laws as Obama’s.

During the Obama administration and before Trump’s zero-tolerance policy was introduced, migrant families caught illegally entering the U.S. were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation, unless they were known to have a criminal record. Then and now, immigration officials may take a child from a parent in certain cases, such as serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns.

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ENERGY and ENVIRONMENT

TRUMP: “We have the cleanest air and water, they say, in the world. We are the best.”– remarks Wednesday at the signing of orders on pipelines.

THE FACTS: Not true about air.

U.S. drinking water is among the best by one leading measure.

Trump’s own Environmental Protection Agency data show that in 2017, among 35 major U.S. cities, there were 729 cases of “unhealthy days for ozone and fine particle pollution.” That’s up 22 per cent from 2014 and the worst year since 2012. Findings for 2018 are incomplete.

The State of Global Air 2019 report by the Health Effects Institute rated the U.S. as having the eighth cleanest air for particle pollution — which kills 85,000 Americans each year — behind Canada, Scandinavian countries and others.

The U.S. ranks poorly on smog pollution, which kills 24,000 Americans per year. On a scale from the cleanest to the dirtiest, the U.S. is at 123 out of 195 countries measured.

On water, Yale University’s global Environmental Performance Index finds 10 countries tied for the cleanest drinking water, the U.S. among them. On environmental quality overall, the U.S. was 27th, behind a variety of European countries, Canada, Japan, Australia and more. Switzerland was No. 1.

——

TRUMP: “With the help of the incredible workers in this room, the United States is now the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world, anywhere on the planet. Not even close. Made a lot of progress in the last two and a half years, haven’t we? Huh? Took down a lot of barriers.” — signing ceremony.

THE FACTS: As he’s done many times before, Trump is crediting himself with things that happened under Obama.

Here’s what the government’s U.S. Energy Information Administration says: “The United States has been the world’s top producer of natural gas since 2009, when U.S. natural gas production surpassed that of Russia, and the world’s top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when U.S. production exceeded Saudi Arabia’s.”

As for crude oil specifically, the information agency says the U.S. became the world’s top crude oil producer last year. That is largely attributed to the shale oil boom that began during the Obama administration, which has sent production from the Permian Basin in the southwest surging.

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TRUMP: “Under this administration, we have ended the war on American energy like never before.” — signing ceremony.

THE FACTS: It wasn’t much of a war. U.S. petroleum and natural gas production has increased by nearly 60% since 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration, achieving pre-eminence during the Obama administration. That said, the Trump administration is more closely aligned with fossil fuel interests as it works to restrain environmental obstacles and the power of states to stand in the way of pipelines and other energy development.

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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Jonathan Lemire, Mary Clare Jalonick, Ellen Knickmeyer and Seth Borenstein in Washington and Nomaan Merchant in Houston contributed to this report.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures

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sheminecrafts · 6 years

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Google gets slapped $5BN by EU for Android antitrust abuse

Google has been fined a record breaking €4.34 billion (~$5BN) by European antitrust regulators for abusing the dominance of its Android mobile operating system.

Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager has tweeted to confirm the penalty ahead of a press conference about to take place. Stay tuned for more details as we get them.

Fine of €4,34 bn to @Google for 3 types of illegal restrictions on the use of Android. In this way it has cemented the dominance of its search engine. Denying rivals a chance to innovate and compete on the merits. It’s illegal under EU antitrust rules. @Google now has to stop it

— Margrethe Vestager (@vestager) July 18, 2018

In a longer statement about the decision, Vestager said:

Today, mobile internet makes up more than half of global internet traffic. It has changed the lives of millions of Europeans. Our case is about three types of restrictions that Google has imposed on Android device manufacturers and network operators to ensure that traffic on Android devices goes to the Google search engine. In this way, Google has used Android as a vehicle to cement the dominance of its search engine. These practices have denied rivals the chance to innovate and compete on the merits. They have denied European consumers the benefits of effective competition in the important mobile sphere. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules.

In particular, the EC has decided that Google:

has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google’s app store (the Play Store);

made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app on their devices; and

has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called “Android forks”).

The decision also concludes that Google is dominant in the markets for general internet search services; licensable smart mobile operating systems; and app stores for the Android mobile operating system.

During the press conference Vestager said the Commission had determined that Google had breached its competition rules with Android since 2011.

“The decision today concludes that the restrictions Google imposed on manufacturers and network operators using Android have breached [EU] rules since 2011,” she said. “First that’s because Google’s practices have denied rival search engines the possibility to compete on their merits. They made sure that Google search engine is pre-installed on practically all Android devices, which is an advantage that cannot be matched.

“And by making payments to major manufacturers and network operators on condition that no other search app or search engine was pre-installed — well, then rivals were excluded from this opportunity.”

“Google’s practices also harmed competition and further innovation in the wider mobile space, beyond just Internet search — and that’s because they prevented other mobile browsers from competing effectively with the pre-installed Google Chrome browser.

“Finally they obstructed the development of Android forks. This could have provided a platform for rival search engines as well as other app developers to thrive.”

She raised the example of Amazon’s Android fork, Fire OS, as a rival Android platform that has suffered from Google’s contractual arrangements with device manufacturers.

“In 2012 and 2013 Amazon tried to license to device manufacturers its Android fork, called Fire OS. It wanted to co-operate with manufacturers to increase its chances of commercial success. And manufacturers were interested but due to Google’s restrictions, manufacturers could not launch Fire OS on even a single device,” she said.

“They would have lost the right to sell any Android phone with key Google apps. Nowadays, very few devices run with Fire OS. Namely only those manufactured by Amazon themselves. And this is not a proportionate outcome. Google is entitled to set technical requirements to ensure that functionality and apps within its own Android ecosystem runs smoothly. But these technical requirements cannot serve as a smokescreen to prevent the development of competing Android ecosystems.

“Google cannot have its cake and eat it.”

Vestager also made a point of characterizing Google’s actions as monopolistic towards data, saying that by blocking rival apps and services it “also denied rivals access to valuable data from increased user traffic which in turn could have allowed rivals to improve their products”.

During the press conference she was asked several times about whether breaking up Google might not be a more effective remedy than the cease & desist decision the Commission has reached today — which hands responsibility for Google to come up with a compliance remedy for its illegal behavior with Android (albeit, subject to ongoing monitoring by the Commission).

She replied that she wasn’t sure that breaking up Google would make for an effective competition remedy, arguing there are “no silver bullets” to ensuring competitive markets.

“Here we have a decision that is very clear, which will allow mobile device producers to have a choice — that will us, as consumers, to have a choice as well. That’s what competition is about. And I think that is much more important than a discussion of whether or not breaking up a company would do that,” she said, when asked whether she would exclude the possibility of breaking up Google — so she was sidestepping a direct answer to that.

“I think what will serve competition is for more players to have a real go, to be able to reach consumers so that we can use our choice to find what suits us the best,” she added. “Test out new search engines, new browsers, have maybe a phone that works in a slightly different way [via an Android fork]… maybe the totality of the phone, in the way it was presented, that would work to allow others to compete on the merits, to show consumers what can we do, what have we invented, this is where we put our efforts, this is the that innovation we want to present for you. This I think would enable competition.”

She also emphasized the importance of passing proposed EU legislation related to transparency and fairness for businesses that are reliant on online platforms.

“I think there is a very important discussion which is to discuss how to pass the legislation that my colleagues have tabled — legislation that will ensure that you have transparency and fairness in the business to platform relationship,” she said.

“So that if you’re a business and you find that ‘oh, my traffic has stopped’, that you know why it happened, when it happened and what to do to get your traffic back…. Because this will change the marketplace, and it will change the way we are protected as consumers but also as businesses.”

Google has tweeted an initial reaction to the decision, claiming Android has created “a vibrant ecosystem, rapid innovation and lower prices”.

.@Android has created more choice for everyone, not less. #AndroidWorks pic.twitter.com/FAWpvnpj2G

— Google Europe (@googleeurope) July 18, 2018

A company spokesperson confirmed to us that it will appeal the Commission’s decision.

The fine is the second major penalty for the ad tech giant for breaching EU competition rules in just over a year — and the highest ever issued by the Commission for abuse of a dominant market position.

In June 2017 Google was hit with a then-record €2.4BN (~$2.7BN) antitrust penalty related to another of its products, search comparison service, Google Shopping. The company has since made changes to how it displays search results for products in Europe.

According to the bloc’s rules, companies can be fined 10 per cent of their global revenue if they are deemed to have breached European competition law.

Google’s parent entity Alphabet reported full year revenue of $110.9 billion in 2017. So the $5BN fine is around half of what the company could have been on the hook for if EU regulators had levied the maximum penalty possible.

The Commission said the size of the fine takes into account “the duration and gravity of the infringement”. It also specified it had been calculated on the basis of the value of Google’s revenue from search advertising services on Android devices in the European Economic Area (per its own guidelines on fines).

Google will have three months to pay the fine but is likely to appeal — and legal wrangling could drag the process out for many years. (Although if it does not pay the fine within that timeframe penalty payments of up to 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover of the company can be applied.)

Prior to the Commission’s record pair of fines for Google products, its next highest antitrust penalty is a €1.06BN antitrust fine for chipmaker Intel all the way back in 2009.

Yet only last year Europe’s top court ruled that the case against Intel — which focused on it offering rebates to high-volume buyers — should be sent back to a lower court to be re-examined, nearly a decade after the original antitrust decision. So Google’s lawyers are likely to have a spring in their step going into this next European antitrust battle.

The latest EU fine for Android has been on the cards for more than two years, given the Commission’s preliminary findings and consistently prescriptive remarks from Vestager during the course of what has been a multi-year investigation process.

And, indeed, given multiple EU antitrust investigations into Google businesses and business practices (the EU has also been probing Google’s AdSense advertising service — a separate investigation that Vestager today confirmed remains ongoing).

The Commission’s prior finding that Google is a dominant company in Internet search — a judgement reached at the culmination of its Google Shopping investigation last year — is also important, making the final judgement in the Android case more likely because the status places the onus on Google not to abuse its dominant position in other markets, adjacent or otherwise.

Announcing the Google Shopping penality last summer, Vestager made a point of emphasizing that dominant companies “need to be more vigilant” — saying they have a “special responsibility” to ensure they are not in breach of antitrust rules, and also specifying this applies “in the market where it’s dominant” and “in any other market”. So that means — as here in the Android case — in mobile services too.

While a one-off financial penalty — even one that runs to so many billions of dollars — cannot cause lasting damage to a company as wealthy as Alphabet, of greater risk to its business are changes the regulators can require to how it operates Android which could have a sustained impact on Google if they end up reshaping the competitive landscape for mobile services.

At least that’s the Commission’s intention: To reset what has been judged an unfair competitive advantage for Google via Android, and foster competitive innovation because rival products get a fairer chance to impress consumers.

However the popularity and profile of Google services suggests that even if Android users are offered a choice as a result of an EU antirust remedy — such as of which search engine, maps service, mobile browser or even app store to use — most will likely pick the Google-branded offering they’re most familiar with.

That said, an antitrust remedy could have the chance to shift consumers’ habits over time — if, for instance, OEMs start offering Android devices that come preloaded with alternative mobile services, thereby raising the visibility of non-Google apps and services.

Interestingly, Google has been striking deals with Chinese OEMs in recent months — to brings its ARCore technology to markets where its core services are censored and its Play Store is restricted. And its strategy to workaround regional restrictions in China by working more closely with device makers may also be part of a plan to hedge against fresh regulatory restrictions being placed on Android elsewhere.

Although complainants in the EU’s earlier Google Shopping antitrust case continue to express displeasure with the outcome on that front. And in a statement responding to news that another EU antitrust penalty was incoming for Android, Shivaun Raff, CEO of Foundem, the lead complainant in Google Shopping case, said: “Fines make headlines. Effective remedies make a difference.”

So the devil will be in the detail of the Android remedies Google comes up with.

“The decision requires Google to bring its illegal conduct to an end within 90 days in an effective manner,” said Vestager today. “At a minimum, our decision requires Google to stop and not to re-engage in the three types of restrictions that I have described. In other words our decision stops Google from controlling which search and browser apps manufacturers can pre-install on Android devices, or which Android operating system they can adopt. But it is Google’s sole responsibility to make sure that it changes its conduct in a way that brings the infringements to an effective end.”

“We will monitor this very closely,” she added, warning that failure to comply would invite further penalty payments — of up to 5% of the average daily turnover of Alphabet for each day of non-compliance, back dated to when the non-compliance started.

“Our decision requires Google to change the way it operates and face the consequences of its action.”

On the Google Shopping compliance front, Vestager also has some additional words of warning — saying: “We have not yet taken a position on whether Google has complied with the decision. And since we haven’t done so this remains very much an open question.”

She also said the Commission is continuing to investigate other elements of Google’s business practices related to other vertical search services.

“I cannot prejudge the outcome of these ongoing investigations,” she said, also citing the AdSense probe, adding that they continue to be “a top priority for us”.

Android as an antitrust ‘Trojan horse’

The European Commission announced its formal in-depth probe of Android in April 2015, saying then that it was investigating complaints Google was “requiring and incentivizing” OEMs to exclusively install its own services on devices on Android devices, and also examining whether Google was hindering the ability of smartphone and tablet makers to use and develop other OS versions of Android (i.e. by forking the open source platform).

Rivals — banding together under the banner ‘FairSearch‘ — complained Google was essentially using the platform as a ‘Trojan horse’ to unfairly dominate the mobile web. The lobby group’s listing on the EU’s transparency register describes its intent as promoting “innovation and choice across the Internet ecosystem by fostering and defending competition in online and mobile search within the European Union”, and names its member organizations as: Buscapé, Cepic, Foundem, Naspers, Nokia, Oracle, TripAdvisor and Yroo.

On average, Android has around a 70-75% smartphone marketshare across Europe. But in some European countries the OS accounts for an even higher proportion of usage. In Spain, for example, Android took an 86.1% marketshare as of March, according to market data collected by Kantar Worldpanel.

In recent years Android has carved an even greater market share in some European countries, while Google’s Internet search product also has around a 90% share of the European market, and competition concerns about its mobile OS have been sounded for years.

Last year Google reached a $7.8M settlement with Russian antitrust authorities over Android — which required the company to no longer demand exclusivity of its applications on Android devices in Russia; could not restrict the pre-installation of any competing search engines and apps, including on the home screen; could no longer require Google Search to be the only general search engine pre-installed.

Google also agreed with Russian antitrust authorities that it would no longer enforce its prior agreements where handset makers had agreed to any of these terms. Additionally, as part of the settlement, Google was required to allow third parties to include their own search engines into a choice window, and to allowing users to pick their preferred default search engine from a choice window displayed in Google’s Chrome browser. The company was also required to develop a new Chrome widget for Android devices already being used in Russia, to replace the standard Google search widget on the home screen so they would be offered a choice when it launched.

A year after Vestager’s public announcement of the EU’s antitrust probe of Android, she issued a formal Statement of Objections, saying the Commission believed Google has “implemented a strategy on mobile devices to preserve and strengthen its dominance in general Internet search”; and flagging as problematic the difficulty for Android users whose devices come pre-loaded with the Google Play store to use other app stores (which cannot be downloaded from Google Play).

She also raised concerns over Google providing financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile carriers on condition that Google search be pre-installed as the exclusive search provider. “In our opinion, as we see it right now, it is preventing competition from happening because of the strength of the financial incentive,” Vestager said in April 2016.

Google was given several months to respond officially to the antitrust charges against Android — which it finally did in November 2016, having been granted an extension to the Commission’s original deadline.

In its rebuttal then, Google argued that, contrary to antitrust complaints, Android had created a thriving and competitive mobile app ecosystem. It further claimed the EU was ignoring relevant competition in the form of Apple’s rival iOS platform — although iOS does not hold a dominant marketshare in Europe, nor Apple have a status as a dominant company in any EU markets.

Google also argued that its “voluntary compatibility agreements” for Android OEMs are a necessary mechanism for avoiding platform fragmentation — which it said would make life harder for app developers — as well as saying its requirement for Android OEMs to use Google search by default is effectively its payment for providing the suite for free to device makers (given there is no formal licensing fee for Android).

It also couched “free distribution is an efficient solution for everyone” — arguing it lowers prices for phone makers and consumers, while “still letting us sustain our substantial investment in Android and Play”.

In addition, Google sought to characterize open source platforms as “fragile” — arguing the Commission’s approach risked upsetting the “balance of needs” between users and developers, and suggesting their action could signal they favor “closed over open platforms”.

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