Skyhook Sues Google, Says Android Isn't So Open After All

It's well-known that telecoms selling Android devices are disabling built-in services and loading the machines up with carrier-approved bloatware. A new lawsuit alleges that Google itself is doing the same thing with their own software services.

Skyhook Wireless -- the company that innovated geolocation services using radio signals from cellphone towers in lieu of GPS -- has filed patent-infringement and unfair trade practices complaints against Google, which has its own competing location service bundled within Android OS. According to Skyhook's complaint:

On information and belief, Google has notified OEMs that they will need to use Google Location Service, either as a condition of the Android OS-OEM contract or as a condition of the Google Apps contract between Google and each OEM. Though Google claims the Android OS is open source, by requiring OEMs to use Google Location Service, an application that is inextricably bundled with the OS level framework, Google is effectively creating a closed system with respect to location positioning. Google’s manipulation suggests that the true purpose of Android is, or has become, to ensure that “no industry player can restrict or control the innovations of any other”, unless it is Google.

In other words, Google is leveraging its OS market share to push its own affiliated products and snuff out competitors -- kind of like Microsoft did with Internet Explorer on Windows 15 years ago. Yikes.

PDF: Skyhook-Google Complaint and Jury Demand [Daring Fireball]
Then Welcome to Android [Daring Fireball]

See Also:

• I Am Here: One Man's Experiment With the Location-Aware Lifestyle
• The Wi-Fi iPad's Dealbreaker: No GPS
• Bloatware Creeps Into Android Phones
• Google: 200000 Android Phones Sold Every Day