China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology may be about to deal Google a bit of a body blow when it comes to the use of Android in the country. The reason? Android is so successful in China it has the government concerned it’s a little too dominant and Google a little too controlling to be a good thing.
The main complaint lodged at Google seems to be its control over the Android platform. Even though Android is open source, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology believes Google discriminates against Chinese companies, both by hindering development of mobile operating system and employing commercial contracts that limit domestic business development.
For the moment, the concerns take the form of a research white paper from the ministry, but it is being viewed as the first step towards new regulation surrounding the use of Android in China. If any action is taken, the Chinese government will ensure it is much easier for Chinese companies to compete, and ultimately have Chinese consumers running a mobile OS developed by domestic companies in the future.
Google will be monitoring this with a lot of concern due to the size of the Chinese market and its presence there. But let’s be honest here, if things get worse for Google and Android in China there is very little Google can do about it.
China is now thought to be the biggest market for mobile devices in the world, and 90 percent of devices there run some form of Android. With that in mind, you can see why the Chinese government couldn’t fail but to take an interest and utimately react.
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