But Google will not use any of its substantial infrastructure to prevent you from doing your own business. They will still list you in the search results, offer your software in the android store, allow you to buy ads, etc. This is very different from what is happening here.

So all in all, bullshit.

Twitter wanted Google to pay them hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to search tweets. Google was paying that money, but then Twitter wanted to increase the fee and Google refused. But again, if they wanted to have their tweets indexed by google on the same terms as everyone else (i.e., for free) they could.

   one email quotes an Android manager saying it was obvious to
   phone manufacturers that "we are using compatibility as a club
   to make them do things we want." [1]

   Motorola flat-out told Skyhook that Android devices are "approved
   essentially at Google's discretion," and that Moto couldn't afford
   to risk its relationship with Google. Motorola also told Skyhook that
   its carrier agreements require Google's apps be preloaded on its
   phones, so Google's compatibility decision was doubly important --
   if Motorola shipped software that didn't have Google's blessing (and
   apps), it would immediately violate its contracts with carriers. [2]

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/internal-emails-reveal-go...

[2] http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la...

Apples, oranges, and all that.

1. Skyhook didn't just want their stuff preinstalled, they wanted Google Maps taken out.

2. Google felt that the way Skyhook reported their location data (mixing WiFi/cell tower calculations and GPS data, IIRC) would have polluted their location database if they had tried to use it (the way they use the data gathered via Google Maps). Since getting that data is one of their few direct, tangible benefits from releasing Google Apps on an Android phone, it isn't terribly surprising that they'd be protective of it.

Hopefully very few. I wrote that at the end of 2004, and it seems simpler to link to it than to repeat the same old, same old arguments all over again.