I do agree Google could come up with a way to twist Android trademark licensees to be compliant. I don't know if I agree that Google is evil if they don't.

Who is "they" here? Google? Or other copyright holders on the GPL'd code?

Regardless, I don't see how this matters. If anyone went after these companies, after some hassle they would comply with the GPL. And that's it.

I am a long-time open source supporter, and it annoys me when people don't comply with the FOSS licenses to the code they ship. But, let's be honest - in most cases in the current context, the companies have no code that would be useful to the community, so we would gain basically nothing if they did comply, and they do not comply out of either a misunderstanding of the GPL or laziness. So it really doesn't matter.

It could be argued though that out of the principle of the thing, they should be forced to comply, so there isn't a culture of ignoring open source licenses. I'd agree to that, but it doesn't matter if I do, someone with copyrights to the relevant code + time + money needs to agree and actually sue them.

Indeed not, but handing over your improvements to your competitors knowing not all of them will do the same seems to me like a bad business decision.

Those companies could comply, and Google would still make the same amount of money. It doesn't matter to Google if they comply or not comply, monetarily or otherwise.

This is not necessarily the choice vendors make. They are choosing between complying, not complying and not using. If complying is not an option, then Google banning the non-compliance option by implementing the OP's suggestion (which it would effectively do, as far as I can tell) would encourage vendors to simply refrain from using Android, the only remaining option.

It would not surprise me if Google intentionally refrained from banning the non-compliance option to help popularize Android. If that is true (which, it very well might not be), then the current situation, in which non-compliance is commonplace, is just a result of Google's early Android strategy.

By now, though, maybe we've reached a stage in which it is more profitable to comply with the GPL than not using Android at all. If so, then Google could implement the OP's suggestion without much harm.

1) 'Seems like a bad business decision' sounds like you think that's a decision to make in the first place. Basing your company on operating systems/database systems/tooling that you got from bittorrent might be a 'business decision' in the same way, if I understand you correctly?

2) "They are choosing between complying, not complying and not using."

How are there three choices? It's either complying or not using. Everything else is not a business, it's a shady/illegal way to make money off other people's work. Again: This isn't a (real, legitimate) choice in the first place, so I don't see why this comes up at all.

Not complying with the license of the software you use is not a good business decision. I said otherwise in my previous post and that was incorrect. My bad.

However, if you're operating in an environment in which you know that your compliance with said license will not be reciprocated by your competitors, then I can understand why one would be reluctant.

How are there three choices? It's either complying or not using. Everything else is not a business, it's a shady/illegal way to make money off other people's work. Again: This isn't a (real, legitimate) choice in the first place, so I don't see why this comes up at all.

It's clear these companies have no issue with not complying with the GPL. If they did, they would be in compliance right now.

If your goal is popularizing a new operating system, and you know you're dealing with people who do not care about such trivial matters like licenses or laws, then not taking measures to enforce the license is good for business. That, while shady, and perhaps evil, is not illegal.