Google uses Android as a “club” to make phone makers do what it wants. That claim comes from…an email sent by Dan Morrill, Google’s open source and compatibiliy manager, back in August 2010.
The correspondence, revealed as part of a lawsuit by Skyhook against Google, says phone makers are aware that Google “is using compatability as a club to make them do things we want”.
That offhand comment ties closely into Skyhook’s claim that Google put pressure on Motorola to ditch its method for providing location services using WiFi and cell tower signal data on pain of Google’s wrath and a loss of crucial Android features…
