Lawsuit Challenges Android's Openness Claims

Anything that touches on online privacy is sure to get a lot of attention and anything that "reveals" how some big company is abusing your private data is sure to cause a stir.

Google is a popular target these days and, in the aftermath of the whole Apple iPhone location tracking thing, its Android mobile operating system is under scrutiny.

The reason for this new-found attention is an ongoing lawsuit from location data provider Skyhook which sued Google under several accusations.

The startup accused Google of anti-competitive practices, since it interfered with a couple of its existing contracts with phone manufacturers, and also patent infringement.

Skyhook managed to sign a contract with Motorola and one with Samsung to provide location services for their Android-powered phones. Skyhook uses a number of sources, WiFi location, GPS, cell tower data and so on to determine location.

But Google also offered its own solution, for free, which is built into Android. So it moved to block Skyhook and got the two manufactures to cancel their contracts by appealing to a "compatibility" standard to which all manufacturers that license Android from Google must adhere to.

One of Android's touting points, at least as Google is concerned, is its openness. Since the project is open source, anyone can grab the code, modify it, put it on their devices and so on. That's the theory, in practice things don't really work out this way.

While the core operating system is open source, all of the Google Apps and services are not. Neither is the branding and the use of the Google name.

So if manufacturers want an "official" Android phone, they must sign a license which, among other things, enables Google to dictate certain things about the devices and the software.

Skyhook alleges that this is how Google got the two phone makers to back out on their contracts, for fear of Skyhook eating into Google's business.

Some, heavily redacted internal emails from Google execs and employees show that the company was indeed concerned about the Skyhook deal, especially since they didn't see it coming.

The same emails show how Google weighed its options and though about how to handle the case.

But they also indicate that Google found that Skyhook's service was at best on par with what Google was offering. And there is some indication that Google was willing to allow phone makers to use Skyhook, touting the move as evidence of Android's openness.

However, it seems, at least that's what Google is claiming, that Skyhook's service interfered with the location data Google was gathering for its own service and this is the reason why it moved to have the provider ousted.

Since the lawsuit is still underway, we should probably wait for a court decision on the matter. But it should be interesting to see how this plays out and how it affects Google's public standing, if at all.