Europe v Google: how Android became a battleground

The European Commission has accused Google of abusing its dominance of the smartphone market through Android, blocking competition and innovation. But what is Android, what does Google offer and what are others doing with Android? Android is the mobile operating system that runs on over 80% of the world’s smartphones, according to data from Gartner, but there are two versions of Android.

The first is the core operating system called the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). It is open-source, free for anyone to use, change, modify or adapt for practically any purpose. From smartphones and tablets to embedded devices such as sensors, fridges, cars and industrial machines, AOSP has been moulded into many, many forms.

To go along with AOSP, Google also offers its suite of apps and services, which includes the Google Play Store that is full of third-party applications. Most of the Android smartphones or tablets sold in the United Kingdom, US or European Union come with Google’s suite of apps, and is the version of Android most will be familiar with. While AOSP can be used freely for any purpose, Google’s app suite cannot. It comes with a series of conditions that must be met for Google to license an app’s use to device manufacturers. The crux of the EC’s complaint against Google is that the company will not allow manufacturers to include the Google Play Store, which has the largest collection of third-party Android apps available, without including both Google’s Search app, the company’s Chrome browser and having Google Search set as default.