Also, Google used their position to keep Android forks from gaining a competitive foothold in the marketplace.

>Google allegedly ran afoul of EU rules by deterring manufacturers from using Android forks. Google "has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google," the commission said.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/eu-google-illega...

As far as I can tell that was a lie. Google allows OEMs to sell devices running "alternative Android versions", but it insists those versions must be fully Android compatible. It prohibits incompatible forks, which to me seems like an extremely good thing which they have relatively few ways of enforcing given the open source nature of Android.

You are missing the distinction between AOSP's license and google play services' license. You can do as you wish with AOSP. If you want google play services (which all OEMs do), a whole new set of things kick in.

I don't understand what you claim is a lie? I also don't see how effectively subverting the license, presumably including code of outside developers, would make that any less shady.

While I do think that incident was questionable, one relatively minor, fairly ancient incident in 10 years is not really compelling in terms of Google's current practices. If Google is seriously abusing it's market dominance there should be much more serious, larger scale and recent examples than that. The fact that there aren't suggests to me that Google's market abuse here is relatively indirect. Which doesn't make it non-existent, but the idea that Google is exploiting its market dominance in any sort of explicit manner doesn't seem to hold water to me. It is all about the much more subtle question of whether their market offering implicitly results in monopoly abuse because it links their services together through the incentives in the offering.

Here's another one where Google forced Acer to comply and stop the launch of an unapproved phone:

https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/14/3335204/google-statement-...

It's a double edged sword. Of course you want to avoid fragmentation and consumer frustration. But where do you draw a line and call it what it is: monopolistic behaviour that stifles competition.