"Do Not Be Evil" - Yandex

Google Translate translated from http://habrahabr.ru/post/250887/

Today is quite difficult, but, obviously, a great day. Today, Yandex had to move, which I always wanted to believe, never have to do.

We have asked the regulator FAS to return equal relationship in the mobile market. Our appeal - recognition of one unpleasant fact. You and I have every chance to get into the world, where only one company will decide who will be able to deliver services to the people and what these people will be able to use it.

We have always believed in the competition and the choice of the user. So much so that even in our search results from the first days of Yandex are links to other popular search engines. To be honest, I was always sure that Google believes in the same thing. What is a company of engineers, producing cool products. Alas, it is clear that in addition to technical company, which was once considered its slogan «Do not be evil», now there are quite different - a company controlled by lawyers and businessmen.

Android have long does not look open OS. And certainly do not look open competition policy Google on this platform. For example, we are now faced with the fact that the vendors to sell in Russia Phones Yandex services must abandon all Google services, not only in Russia but also in all other countries. The rules for obtaining GMS and Google Play for each of them can change at any time.

We want to open OS and conditions of the license were open and transparent to all.

Thanks to its ingenious programmers and excellent technology Google was able to win almost the whole world. However, it still has quite a few places where the most popular local services. Local players live close to their users, and it seems that it is very helpful to create products so that they are more global. I find it easy to talk about Yandex, but let's take another example. Compare completeness directory 2GIS for Russia and Google Maps, or the number of active users Russian VKontakte and Facebook. It is logical that the manufacturers of phones and tablets want their offspring into account the specifics of the market in which they are sold. This would, for example, Explay, Prestigio and Fly, but at the end of last year at the urging of Google, they had to abandon the pre-service Yandex. It happened when it is understood that these device manufacturers have come to occupy a significant share of the Russian market of mobile devices.

I have read many comments on this story and to his surprise found that even adults monolingual children do not always understand what threatens the situation. In fact now the owner of "open source operating system" makes vendors refuse to work with those who are competing with Google in any market. And I did not even about what it threatens Yandex and about in what position this puts and developers, and users.

Google bought Android almost ten years ago. During this time he went a long way and not only technically. Around the middle of this road has been a major trend - Google Android has become saturate their services and applications that simply had to be pre-installed on each device. This search, and maps and geolocation tools. To think that just three years ago such mandatory service was only nine. Now they are almost 20. What technology company wants to create more good service, in itself, perhaps, not bad. The problem is that its services are pre-installed on phones and tablets is largely due to the fact that no other manufacturer they can not deliver. Android is becoming increasingly surrounded by public and not agreements, more and more closed. All this is rapidly beginning to resemble me a story with Windows.

Let us return for a moment to remember the year 1999 and quite a similar situation. More than 95% of the market of personal computers running Windows, which is an integral part of the Internet Explorer 5 (and a little later, and if you're lucky - 5.5 and 6). What do we know about this browser? The fact that it was the worst in the history of the Internet browser. Technological shackles, in which we were forced to impose nested tables. Even Microsoft employees recognize that it was awful. This will last another ten years - until 2009, when the European Union has forced Microsoft when you first start to offer European users a choice of browsers. And Google, along with Opera and Mozilla, actively participated in the proceedings unfair competition against Microsoft.

One might ask - why should I? After all, Microsoft created Windows. Why could not they are already pre-set your browser? The fact is that many people do not understand that there are some alternatives. They bought the device and it was already does. Just today they are buying Android-phone and use only the fact that it is already there. Many users believe that the phone is already sold ready to use and never look in Google Play to install other programs.

The results of the case "The European Commission against Microsoft» gave a huge impetus to the development of new Internet technologies. In fact, today's success Google Chrome - largely the merit order of the antitrust decisions. Certainly, WebKit, Blink and generally Chromium, the whole code base - this is a good technology products, but they are no one knew, and so develop them was extremely difficult.

Look at the graphics. The share of Google Chrome has increased its efforts to increase since December 2009, when people in Europe have been able to choose a browser. Then went up the share of Firefox and Opera. The competition has become a real and, as always, to force the browser to get better and better. Benefited from it all. Browser developers were able to show off your product users. And they, in turn, were surprised to find that browsers leaped forward. Website designers are living in a new web, with modern, comfortable and, most importantly, developing standards. Even Microsoft has won the victim - this allowed the company to focus and release a completely different IE. Try it, it's not so bad. All the modern revolution of web applications began at a time when there was a choice.

What happens now? In fact, if it is you want to create applications that can make use of a large number of people, it must be available in the App Store and Google Play Market. And if Apple device as a Buddhist is inseparable from the software, use the Android manufacturers are faced with a choice - either Google Play and 20 preset services Google, or alternative solutions and alternative shop, but for all regions without exception.

Now those who want to focus on building search, maps or browsers are forced to create their own alternative platforms. About the same as a little more than 7 years ago, opponents of the Opera, Mozilla and Google urged them to make their operating systems with their browsers and generally anything. But even if now someone will make a new mobile platform will remain a very important task - to ensure that the creators of the application spends its resources on a version for them. As we can see, even such a giant like Microsoft, it's not very well succeed.

Once it so happened that all whose lives and work are related to technology, believe that this is a good competitive world where technology companies compete for users' normal ways. We ourselves until recently did not believe that it is necessary to call for a resolution of the situation of the regulator. For the first time our faith is shaken when we saw how the distribution of Google. If you are using Mozilla Firefox, you know that this product development team is always thinking about the preferences of users. Does take into account that there are Russia, Japan, South Korea, where the majority of people use local search engines. And suddenly Mozilla signed a three-year agreement with Google to search for his unconditional distribution everywhere. A man who enjoyed by Yandex in Russia, had to look after the update as to regain the usual search. And not all were able to do it.

In my fantasies I certainly think, still it would be nice to people at any moment could easily change the default search engine. Now in theory he could do it, but the settings are buried manufacturer so deep that not everyone will cope with this. Can you name a way to change the default search without looking at the device? I am sure that is not. But many buyers Android-phone never look into the settings and eventually get it exactly the way it was set up manufacturer, bound hand and foot with contracts with Google. And there will not be anything other than Google, and not because it is beneficial to the user, and because Google is advantageous to use a dominant position in one market to put pressure on the other. A ban on it - the basis of antitrust laws. Without competition draws products will not develop. In this sense, Yandex and Google just need each other. You can not imagine how it became to grow the quality of Google services in Turkey, when we came to this country. As long as Google is not seen competition in the Turkish searching, he did nothing. Seeing it live competition for months - and for the search engines is almost instantly - to improve search through a few times, launched several new services previously unavailable to residents of Turkey.

Probably the only product for which many may not like Yandex, it Yandeks.Bara. But it seems everyone who laughed at a joke about a girl that is easy to talk, just do not remember that until recently it was impossible to install Flash, OpenOffice, a bunch of Sun products and Java, not wrung out a tick "Install Google Toolbar». This is a war that we did not start, but alas - we had to get involved in it, and the illusion of a fair competition process started slowly fading away. But now the situation has passed all reasonable limits.

We now live in a world where the operating system is not only in computers and phones, and watches, cars, airplanes, fire extinguishing systems. And if it happened so that it will be the same OS, you want to keep all of it controlled by a single company. I still believe that Google is enough technicians who misunderstood the situation. So I'm sure that could still end well.