>The investigation will attempt to determine whether Google is using its position to discourage the inclusion of rival applications on Android-based phones.
I don't see any way to even ask the question sensibly about iOS.
Google supplies an OS (Android) to non-Google phone makers, and Google supplies applications to non-Google phone makers. The potential antitrust issue is if Google is using its position as an OS supplier to other companies to influence those other companies to also choose Google for applications.
Apple supplies neither an OS nor applications to non-Apple phone makers. There is no third party that Apple is using iOS to influence toward choosing Apple applications.
It's not really "astroturf"ing when FairSearch prominently displays that it's an organization owned by Microsoft on their about page: http://www.fairsearch.org/about/
(Meanwhile, Google goes out of their way to hide their ownership of the Open Handset Alliance, burying the first mention of their name on like the third page of members.)
No one out there is under any illusion that Google didn't put together and lead this consortium. What else would they do? You make an OS, one that is free of charge and open, and you need hardware and software partners onboard, the only way to do that is to adopt some venue for collaboration.
Have you attended any OHA meetings? You're making quite a lot of unbacked up assertions.
Microsoft for years ran many working groups for hardware partners, for example, the Microsoft groups for DirectX which allowed NVidia, AMD, et al, to influence and collborate on common specs. Microsoft "led" the discussion, but NVidia and AMD were clearly able to influence the specs because the API had to be rationalized around real, existing, and upcoming hardware designs in the pipeline.
You have a habit to attributing negative and conspiratorial agendas to everything.
But yes, they are. Look at the front page of the OHA site, Google is not named. Nor are they named in the OHA's Overview, like it's about page. You have to go into Members, and then Software Companies, and on that page, four pages deep, Google puts itself as the sixth name down. Bit shifty.
Furthermore, while all other Google websites link directly to Google's terms of service, the OHA site puts a stub page in between, rather than linking directly to it, as would be standard par for the course.
Google takes exceptional measures to distance themselves from control of the OHA, which they most certainly have.
Thanks to Android and Google. If Google had never released Android, you might be looking at an even more locked in monopoly, one far worse than the Wintel Duopoly of the 90s.
And then Apple would be in the same boat Google is in now. Of course, had Google been willing to create an open source OS without using an illegal trust to maintain control of it... well, then everyone would be in the clear.
Google supplies an OS (Android) to non-Google phone makers, and Google supplies applications to non-Google phone makers. The potential antitrust issue is if Google is using its position as an OS supplier to other companies to influence those other companies to also choose Google for applications.
Apple supplies neither an OS nor applications to non-Apple phone makers. There is no third party that Apple is using iOS to influence toward choosing Apple applications.