Here's a definition of dumping: http://www.glin.gov/subjectTermIndex.action?searchDetails.qu...

Dumping only really has any meaning in international trade, and it refers to predatory pricing policy -- such as when Japanese steel companies were accused of dumping steel on the US market in order to kill their US competition a few years ago. To any reasonable person, there is a clear difference between steel and a mobile operating system. But, supposing this were in scope, if Google makes a profit from mobile advertising or takes a small cut of sales of Android phones by bundling Google apps, Android is still not going for less than market value in any kind of predatory manner.

If Android is being "dumped" to get an advantage in the advertising market, you would have to take the argument further on to other absurd conclusions. Should free newspapers be prevented from "dumping" in racks nearby paid-subscription newspapers? For that matter, is Craigslist dumping classified ads? Should Apple accuse Google for dumping email service in order to help corner the advertising market, since gmail is free and mac.com email is not? The absurdity continues.

Good example on newspapers: what is happening to them (they are dying) is one consequence of the web-ads model propagated by Google. Are you better off now with them dying and thousands of people being laid off, while Google's pockets get fatter and fatter?

Free newspapers don't offer quite the same content as subscriptions. However if they started reprinting materials from subscription-based ones and offering the same material for free, along with their ads, they should probably be restricted from this - for copyright violation. This example is much closer to what's happening with Google. And this is also the reason why some newspapers and authors don't want to be on Google.

Google today with Android is a lot like Microsoft back then. Yet for some reason, today offering free (deeply discounted, more precisely) stuff to kill competition is considered perfectly OK. I find this quite interesting.

Not really. With IE vs. Netscape, Microsoft tied IE into an existing monopoly (its Windows 95 OS). There is no smartphone monopoly or mobile advertising monopoly. Even if you consider Google's search and/or ad positions a monopoly, Google isn't giving Android away for free in association with its monopoly, it's giving Android away for free independent of its monopoly (as evidenced by Android phones that don't use Google services by default, instead using Baidu, Yahoo, etc.). IE was tied into the Windows 95 OS, so customers had little choice in using it. This doesn't even consider the various agreements Microsoft made with OEMs.

Also, behavior that is illegal or unethical for a company with a significant monopoly (e.g. Microsoft in the 1990s) may be legal or ethical for a non-monopoly company (e.g. Google's smartphone business in the 2010s).

Edit: I will add that Netscape's business model was probably unsustainable regardless of IE being free. Web browsers are better off being free.

Google essentially gives Android for free. Just yesterday I saw Nexus S "free" (with 2-year contract) on main Google page!

You can argue that any kind of software is better off free. More people will use it sooner if it's free. But I don't think this model fits everyone. What if you don't want to get outside investors right away and don't have deep pockets?

I did not know about Android phones not tied to Google search. I understand that you can switch your default search engine to something other than Google, but most people use the defaults. Windows users could have also deleted IE and installed Netscape. But with free IE pre-installed and working, most did not bother. Netscape got killed.

You can get similar contracts with the iPhone. That has absolutely nothing to do with Google, and everything to do with carrier subsidies for phones.

I understand that you can switch your default search engine to something other than Google, but most people use the defaults.

The default search engine for Windows phones is Bing. The solution, if there is a problem, isn't to make Google charge manufacturers for Android. It's to make all phones ask which search engine should be used when you first power up the phone, just as the EU did with web browsers. I still don't see how that relates to the patent issues at hand.

Windows users could have also deleted IE and installed Netscape. But with free IE pre-installed and working, most did not bother. Netscape got killed.

This isn't very relevant, but with the level of integration between Windows and IE, it was not possible for the average user to delete IE.

Here's the main question: we both agree that G gives away Android to phone manufactures for very little. Below the actual cost. You even pointed out it's not always tied to Google search and services. So why, why Google does this? Out of their great heart? Think about it - and perhaps you will see their motives are not that idealistic.

Many of these same arguments came up when Microsoft was complaining about Linux being Free. My reasoning is the same now as it was then.

I really, really don't understand your position, and that may be ignorance on my part.

(As for the SGS/II looking like the iPhone, that's really neither here nor there, but again, I don't think it excuses patent trolling.)

Android OS is the most essential part to make Android phones operate. It does cost Google a lot of money to make, yet it gives phone manufacturers licenses for cheap, just to make phones cheap enough so that users chose them over iPhones. Google wants it so bad they are willing to lose a lot of money now hoping it will pay off in future when everyone has Androids. Apple (and Microsoft) who cannot use this model (they don't dominate in ads or search markets) obviously don't like this. How would you feel if you were Apple? So they will try to use patents to make Android licenses more expensive. I hope I explained it well this time.

P.S. I don't know what is the right response to dumping. With physical goods it's easy to prove. With software much harder. This does not mean dumping prices on phone OS software to kill competition is nice. Apple and MS are just using what they can within legal means. Google did not play it nice with them - why they should be nice to Google?

No need to wait for the future, Andy Rubin and Eric Schmidt have stated that Android is already profitable, through advertising revenue. That Microsoft and Apple can't compete with Google's business model is not unfair, it's business: they aren't owed profits, they must earn it.

In any case, you might as well say that Apple-Software "licenses" Apple-Hardware iOS for "free" and makes money from the App Store. Is it "unfair" that the Android Market doesn't dominate developer attention like the App Store has? And Microsoft in particular is trying to build its own search and ad presence, so they might in theory adopt Google's model; that they aren't successful enough to drop licensing fees is tough luck.

In any case, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to concerns that advertising-driven business models may cheapen software in the long term, but that this somehow justifies some pseudo-conspiracy to take down Android with patent litigation just flabbergasts me.

Google seams far less dangerous to me, just build on android (the open source project) and google monopoly can (thoretically) be broken... am I too naive?