14 DAY TRIAL // The free and open source Android, from the communists at Google, is a threat to competition, capitalism and probably the free world itself. At least that's what new complaints to the EU's competition protection commission seem to suggest.
According to the several groups and companies behind FairSearch, companies such as Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle, the free and open source Android is just a trojan horse, a way of forcing people to use Maps, Gmail, YouTube and so on.
Somehow, Google manages to force people and companies into using its services, against their will, even as countless alternatives to all of Google's services are available in the Play store.
Google's power to magically force people and companies to use its services, though, seems to have met its match in Amazon which, somehow, managed to take the free and open source Android, remove any trace of Google from it, and live to tell about it.
But it's clear that the free and open source Android does considerable damage to Microsoft's ability to force people into using its apps on the non-free, non-open source Windows Phone, for which Microsoft doesn't allow alternatives in its own app store. Android must be stopped, for the sake of competition.
Google's mystical powers don't stop at Android, somehow, the company is able to force iPhone users of the non-free, non-open source, non-licensable iOS, into downloading, installing and using its apps which occupy top spots in the iTunes app chart.
Microsoft meanwhile complains about Google not releasing its apps for Windows Phone, the same apps Google must force hardware makers to bundle with their phones and force people to use them.
"Google is using its Android mobile operating system as a 'Trojan horse' to deceive partners, monopolise the mobile marketplace, and control consumer data," FairSearch argued.
The poor hardware manufacturers, it seems, have no idea that Google is "deceiving" them by offering them a free mobile operating system to compete with Apple's iOS and in turn transforming them from washing machine moguls to some of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. If only someone like Microsoft would stand up for them.
"Failure to act will only embolden Google to repeat its desktop abuses of dominance as consumers increasingly turn to a mobile platform dominated by Google's Android operating system," FairSearch continued.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the "mobile platform" is now dominated by Google. Someone better tell Apple, we wouldn't want a repeat of the "desktop abuses" which are preventing Microsoft's Windows from fairly competing against the domination of Chrome OS.
According to the complaint, Google is also using Android, which has no advertising of any kind by itself, to dominate the mobile ad market somehow.
"Google’s predatory distribution of Android at below-cost makes it difficult for other providers of operating systems to recoup investments in competing with Google’s dominant mobile platform, the complaint says," FairSearch adds.
Indeed, Google can't simply give away Android and hope to get away with it, it must be forced to charge for the open source project so Microsoft, which makes more money from Android than Google, can sell Windows Phone and still save face.