Google's defense against anti-trust claims: 'we're open'
Mountain View used the European Commission's own data against it.
Google has a response for the European Commission's anti-trust allegations. In a lengthy blog post, the tech juggernaut addressed the EC's concerns point by point. That starts with the EC's stance that Android isn't in competition with Apple's iOS mobile operating system, and Google citing the Commission's own research that 89 percent of survey respondents feel that the two are competitors. That last bit is a recurring theme, with Google pointing toward the survey responses for the EC's stance on Android's "stable and consistent framework" across devices as well.
In perhaps the most poignant response, Google made a GIF that illustrates how many apps are typically pre-installed/bundled on Android devices versus the competition -- something the EC directly called out. By Mountain View's count, of the Samsung Galaxy S7 with Android 6.0.1's 38 pre-installed apps, only 11 were from Google. Contrast that with 39 out of 47 on the Lumia 550 from Microsoft and 39 out of 39 from Apple on the iPhone 7 running iOS 10.0.2.
"Android hasn't hurt competition, it's expanded it," Google's Senior Vice President and General Counsel Kent Walker said in a statement. "Android is the most flexibe mobile platform out there, balancing the needs of thousands of manufacturers and operators, millions of app developers and more than a billion consumers.
"Upsetting this balance would raise prices and hamper innovation, choice and competition. That wouldn't just be a bad outcome for us. It would be a bad outcome for the entire ecosystem, and -- most critically -- for consumers."
And with that, the battle moves onward. Maybe the EC's stance won't leak ahead of the next round. Maybe.
