Skyhook filings detail Google's tight control of Android platform
A lawsuit by Skyhook Wireless alleging patent infringement and business interference by Google has resulted in the release of large amounts of documentation detailing the Android-maker's tactics in maintaining control over its ostensibly open platform.
A report by Nilay Patel of This is my next digs through more than 750 pages of documents unsealed by the court.
"Perhaps surprisingly," Patel wrote, "it?s relatively clear from the evidence that Google is the major gatekeeper between OEMs and the market."
The documents reveal that Google has unique agreements with different hardware makers, and that each Android license has an expiration date.
In addition to the core Android software and its Linux kernel, which are largely freely available for unrestricted use, Google maintains tight control over its own layer of proprietary apps, which contribute much of the value of the Android platform.
Google's control over Android devices is no more open than Apple's App Store approvals
Google's contracts leverage the company's own, closed Android apps (including Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and Android Market) to block competing services (such as Skyhook's location services) or prevent unapproved devices from appearing on the market, the evidence indicates.
"In order for a specific device to get a license for the [Google] apps, it must pass the Android Compatibility Test Suite and meet the Android Compatibility Definition," Patel explained. "How Google exactly determines what passes the test is really the core issue in this case ? Skyhook claims Google uses the threat of incompatibility to act anti-competitively."
Google's Android licenses with hardware partners allow the company to change the tests and compatibility definitions at any time, "so basically there?s nothing keeping Google from changing the CTS or ACD any way it wants in order to keep a particular device off the market," the report noted.
While hardware makers are free to build Android devices that aren't rated as compliant by Google and ship without the search giant's apps, there is no market for such "open" devices because hardware makers' carrier contracts require Google's apps. "If Motorola shipped software that didn?t have Google?s blessing (and apps)," Patel wrote, "it would immediately violate its contracts with carriers."
Google vetoes Motorola partnership with Skyhook
Core to the lawsuit by Skyhook is a decision by Google to threaten a "stop ship issue" to block approval of Motorola's Droid X phone last summer because Motorola had contracted with Skyhook to provide location data services for the phone's users.
Google first learned of the partnership between Motorola and Skyhook in an online news article, setting off an email discussion between Google's executives that is documented in the Skyhook legal filings.
Google's location product manager Steven Lee wrote to company co-founder Larry Page, "The risk we face is if Skyhook creates a perception in the industry that they are way better [in providing location data], then more and more partners will switch to them without doing much testing or due diligence themselves.
"And that would be awful for Google, because it will cut off our ability to continue collecting data to maintain and improve our location database. If that happens, we can easily wind up in the situation we were in before creating our own location database and that is (a) having no access at all or (b) paying exorbitant costs for access."
In May 2010, Google initially told Motorola that using Skyhook's service would contaminate Google's own location database. Motorola then verified that Skyhook had passed the Android compatibility test. But Google maintained that Skyhook's system could not be approved and issued a "stop ship" order to Motorola, resulting in decision by Motorola chief executive Sanjay Jha to pull Skyhook from the Droid X to enable it to reach the market.
Arbitrary and capricious
Before Motorola could ship the new Droid X, however, Samsung delivered its Android-based Galaxy S smartphone with Skyhook's location service installed, prompting Motorola to ask why Google was putting it in "in an uncompetitive position." Google's response was that "Motorola should not be concerned with other OEMs and their devices."
At the launch announcement of Droid X in late June, Motorola complained to Google that "it?s unacceptable to be put in a position which limits our ability to compete,? saying that the company was in the process of getting 40 other Android devices through the approval process, and that "over half have been impacted by requirements which were not available or clear prior to submission."
Google responded, "controlling fragmentation on an open platform to ensure that Android is a success? will mean that we learn some lessons the hard way. Having a vibrant ecosystem around an un-fragmented platform is in everyone?s interest, so we all have to bear the burdens."
Motorola's difficulty in getting Android models approved by Google likely plays into the company's decision to develop its own Linux-based smartphone platform independent of Android.
Skyhook alleges anti-competitive behavior by Google
Meanwhile, Skyhook was insisting to Motorola that its location service was being deemed incompatible by Google ?based solely on the interpretation of the word ?satellites?? and not for any technical or performance reason. Patel notes that "Skyhook also claimed it was not shown any documentation from Google saying that XPS [Skyhook's location service] was not compliant with the Android compatibility document."
Skyhook offered to solve any potential 'data contamination' problem by disabling location data collection by Google's apps, but Motorola responded that its Android license required that Google's apps be allowed to collect location data, and that its carrier contracts require that Google's apps be installed on its phones.
In July, Motorola again complained about Samsung's Google-approved use of Skyhook, to which Google responded that Samsung had also stopped using Skyhook's services. Motorola subsequently told Skyhook that "Android devices are approved 'essentially at Google?s discretion,' and that Motorola could not afford to break its relationship with Google," according to the report on the documentation.
The next month, Motorola terminated its contract with Skyhook, saying that the company had made unauthorized statements to the press and had "failed to deliver a functioning product that can be loaded on Motorola Android-based products."
Skyhook subsequently sued Google for business interference, launching a case very similar to the charges that Microsoft faced in the 90s for contractually obligating the bundling of an unremovable Internet Explorer web browser on Windows PCs to erase the market for third party browsers.
Android vs iOS
The Skyhook case demonstrates Google's increasing efforts to limit further fractionalization of Android by blocking the ability of third party hardware makers to release products or services using its own Android licensing and approval process, which goes above and beyond the Open Handset Alliance.
This makes Google's Android hardware platform for devices that are sold "with Google" as much under Google's control as the App Store is under Apple's strict curation.
Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs stated last fall that "Google loves to characterize Android as 'open' and iOS and iPhone as 'closed.' We find this a bit disingenuous and clouding the real difference between our two approaches."
Jobs described various Android app stores as "a mess for both users and developers" and noted that "many Android apps work only on selected handsets, or selected Android versions," alluding to the fact that most Android phones still run an OS release roughly a year old, and often can't be updated for 3 to 6 months after Google makes an update available.
This spring, Google's Android chief Andy Rubin publicly announced an intent to minimize such issues by saying that even the ostensibly open core of Android 3.0 would not be made available to outside programmers for use in unauthorized ways.
Thus, while Apple's "walled garden" ecosystem around the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad limit what third parties can do to Apple's platform and products, Google's Android is already being used to leverage broad competitive control over a wide variety of hardware makers, forcing them to all make products that report data to Google and to change their designs or refuse to do business with other companies on Google's request, under threat of "stop orders" that can prevent the sale of such unapproved devices at any time.
A report by Nilay Patel of This is my next digs through more than 750 pages of documents unsealed by the court.
"Perhaps surprisingly," Patel wrote, "it?s relatively clear from the evidence that Google is the major gatekeeper between OEMs and the market."
The documents reveal that Google has unique agreements with different hardware makers, and that each Android license has an expiration date.
In addition to the core Android software and its Linux kernel, which are largely freely available for unrestricted use, Google maintains tight control over its own layer of proprietary apps, which contribute much of the value of the Android platform.
Google's control over Android devices is no more open than Apple's App Store approvals
Google's contracts leverage the company's own, closed Android apps (including Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and Android Market) to block competing services (such as Skyhook's location services) or prevent unapproved devices from appearing on the market, the evidence indicates.
"In order for a specific device to get a license for the [Google] apps, it must pass the Android Compatibility Test Suite and meet the Android Compatibility Definition," Patel explained. "How Google exactly determines what passes the test is really the core issue in this case ? Skyhook claims Google uses the threat of incompatibility to act anti-competitively."
Google's Android licenses with hardware partners allow the company to change the tests and compatibility definitions at any time, "so basically there?s nothing keeping Google from changing the CTS or ACD any way it wants in order to keep a particular device off the market," the report noted.
While hardware makers are free to build Android devices that aren't rated as compliant by Google and ship without the search giant's apps, there is no market for such "open" devices because hardware makers' carrier contracts require Google's apps. "If Motorola shipped software that didn?t have Google?s blessing (and apps)," Patel wrote, "it would immediately violate its contracts with carriers."
Google vetoes Motorola partnership with Skyhook
Core to the lawsuit by Skyhook is a decision by Google to threaten a "stop ship issue" to block approval of Motorola's Droid X phone last summer because Motorola had contracted with Skyhook to provide location data services for the phone's users.
Google first learned of the partnership between Motorola and Skyhook in an online news article, setting off an email discussion between Google's executives that is documented in the Skyhook legal filings.
Google's location product manager Steven Lee wrote to company co-founder Larry Page, "The risk we face is if Skyhook creates a perception in the industry that they are way better [in providing location data], then more and more partners will switch to them without doing much testing or due diligence themselves.
"And that would be awful for Google, because it will cut off our ability to continue collecting data to maintain and improve our location database. If that happens, we can easily wind up in the situation we were in before creating our own location database and that is (a) having no access at all or (b) paying exorbitant costs for access."
In May 2010, Google initially told Motorola that using Skyhook's service would contaminate Google's own location database. Motorola then verified that Skyhook had passed the Android compatibility test. But Google maintained that Skyhook's system could not be approved and issued a "stop ship" order to Motorola, resulting in decision by Motorola chief executive Sanjay Jha to pull Skyhook from the Droid X to enable it to reach the market.
Arbitrary and capricious
Before Motorola could ship the new Droid X, however, Samsung delivered its Android-based Galaxy S smartphone with Skyhook's location service installed, prompting Motorola to ask why Google was putting it in "in an uncompetitive position." Google's response was that "Motorola should not be concerned with other OEMs and their devices."
At the launch announcement of Droid X in late June, Motorola complained to Google that "it?s unacceptable to be put in a position which limits our ability to compete,? saying that the company was in the process of getting 40 other Android devices through the approval process, and that "over half have been impacted by requirements which were not available or clear prior to submission."
Google responded, "controlling fragmentation on an open platform to ensure that Android is a success? will mean that we learn some lessons the hard way. Having a vibrant ecosystem around an un-fragmented platform is in everyone?s interest, so we all have to bear the burdens."
Motorola's difficulty in getting Android models approved by Google likely plays into the company's decision to develop its own Linux-based smartphone platform independent of Android.
Skyhook alleges anti-competitive behavior by Google
Meanwhile, Skyhook was insisting to Motorola that its location service was being deemed incompatible by Google ?based solely on the interpretation of the word ?satellites?? and not for any technical or performance reason. Patel notes that "Skyhook also claimed it was not shown any documentation from Google saying that XPS [Skyhook's location service] was not compliant with the Android compatibility document."
Skyhook offered to solve any potential 'data contamination' problem by disabling location data collection by Google's apps, but Motorola responded that its Android license required that Google's apps be allowed to collect location data, and that its carrier contracts require that Google's apps be installed on its phones.
In July, Motorola again complained about Samsung's Google-approved use of Skyhook, to which Google responded that Samsung had also stopped using Skyhook's services. Motorola subsequently told Skyhook that "Android devices are approved 'essentially at Google?s discretion,' and that Motorola could not afford to break its relationship with Google," according to the report on the documentation.
The next month, Motorola terminated its contract with Skyhook, saying that the company had made unauthorized statements to the press and had "failed to deliver a functioning product that can be loaded on Motorola Android-based products."
Skyhook subsequently sued Google for business interference, launching a case very similar to the charges that Microsoft faced in the 90s for contractually obligating the bundling of an unremovable Internet Explorer web browser on Windows PCs to erase the market for third party browsers.
Android vs iOS
The Skyhook case demonstrates Google's increasing efforts to limit further fractionalization of Android by blocking the ability of third party hardware makers to release products or services using its own Android licensing and approval process, which goes above and beyond the Open Handset Alliance.
This makes Google's Android hardware platform for devices that are sold "with Google" as much under Google's control as the App Store is under Apple's strict curation.
Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs stated last fall that "Google loves to characterize Android as 'open' and iOS and iPhone as 'closed.' We find this a bit disingenuous and clouding the real difference between our two approaches."
Jobs described various Android app stores as "a mess for both users and developers" and noted that "many Android apps work only on selected handsets, or selected Android versions," alluding to the fact that most Android phones still run an OS release roughly a year old, and often can't be updated for 3 to 6 months after Google makes an update available.
This spring, Google's Android chief Andy Rubin publicly announced an intent to minimize such issues by saying that even the ostensibly open core of Android 3.0 would not be made available to outside programmers for use in unauthorized ways.
Thus, while Apple's "walled garden" ecosystem around the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad limit what third parties can do to Apple's platform and products, Google's Android is already being used to leverage broad competitive control over a wide variety of hardware makers, forcing them to all make products that report data to Google and to change their designs or refuse to do business with other companies on Google's request, under threat of "stop orders" that can prevent the sale of such unapproved devices at any time.
Comments
Oops!
Yeah.
Microsoft 2.0
Strange timing of this story too, given that today is the end of the DOJ's oversight of Microsoft for their antitrust problems.
So, bye bye Google. I'll use Yahoo from now on.
Google should be force to forfeit all revenue generated by Android during the time Google was doing illegal things if found guilty.
Just like everything else, they will get a slap on the wrist and be allowed to continue to make money doing what they are doing.
Google should be force to forfeit all revenue generated by Android during the time Google was doing illegal things if found guilty.
Wouldn't that be zero?
Yeah.
Microsoft 2.0
More like Microsoft 1.0.
Microsoft 2.0 is blind and defanged behemoth thrashing around, still making waves but not as frightening as in the past.
Microsoft 1.0, though. Now that was the terror of the oceans.
(I know what you mean. But I just had to say it
Wouldn't that be zero?
Rubin told Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg that "We're making money on the advertising that's generated through Android."
Mossberg asked: "Are you profitable if it was broken out as a separate business?"
Rubin: "Yes."
Well, I've been using Google for search since the late 90's. I'm stunned by their actions (based on what's in this article and assuming its correct).
So, bye bye Google. I'll use Yahoo from now on.
Boy you sure show them by using Microsoft BING. Too bad BING is terrible
Idiots.
Yeah.
Microsoft 2.0
Exactly! I was thinking that none of this behavior towards competitors and OEMs is out of place for Microsoft, but since Google likes to wrap the saintly bullshit of "open platform" and "don't be evil" around themselves, this feels oddly wrong. Now I know better.
Rubin told Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg that "We're making money on the advertising that's generated through Android."
Mossberg asked: "Are you profitable if it was broken out as a separate business?"
Rubin: "Yes."
But if Android didn't exist Google would be making more money on the platforms that it is replacing.
At least you gave credit this time. Unlike the other times where you guys just copy and paste stuff from Patently Apple.
"And that would be awful for Google, because it will cut off our ability to continue collecting data to maintain and improve our location database. If that happens, we can easily wind up in the situation we were in before creating our own location database and that is (a) having no access at all or (b) paying exorbitant costs for access."
And that is on the tail of Congressional testimony about how much good the data collection is for everyone (named Google)! They have a problem with honesty and openness I think.
Say it ain't so!
http://source.android.com/ <--------- This is the open bit here.