Saturday, May 3, 2014

Secret Google deals made Android phones more expensive, lawsuit claims

A lawsuit filed Thursday accuses Google of strong-arming device manufacturers into making its search engine the default on Android devices, driving up the cost of those devices and hurting consumers.
The consumer class-action complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges Google does that by making secret agreements with manufacturers that also require applications such as YouTube and Google Play store to occupy prime real estate on the devices’ screens.
It argues device manufacturers enter such secret pacts with Google, called Mobile Application Distribution Agreements (MADA), because they know consumers expect to see a full suite of Google apps when they buy a device.

No comments:

Post a Comment