Google has announced that it will change the way it licenses its Android apps in Europe following a $ 4.34 billion fine imposed by the European Commission last July for abusing its dominant position in the smartphone market. The novelty mainly concerns mobile phone manufacturers, but may also have some practical repercussions for individual users. Android itself will continue to be provided for free to manufacturers, while the Play Store and applications such as Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube will no longer be free and will be sold to those who produce smartphones, through the sale of licenses. The Chrome browser will be distributed in a separate package, which also includes the Google Search app, and can be purchased by manufacturers who have paid for the license for the other Google apps.
For now, Google has not communicated the prices of the licenses and probably the figures will vary significantly, depending on the agreements with the individual manufacturers. The news will only concern smartphones sold in Europe and will affect what will be pre-installed on new mobile phones. In fact, producers will be able to decide to sell smartphones without the Play Store and Google apps, or to sell them with all these apps and without Chrome, or even to sell smartphones with all Google applications as is already the case today. The company has also removed some constraints for manufacturers, so that they can sell the same models with different versions of Android, including those derived (forked) from the classic operating system, a big change from the past for Google.
Users are still used to having the Google Play store and applications such as Gmail and Google Maps on their mobile phones, so it is unlikely that large manufacturers such as Samsung will change the equipment of their phones, they will simply spend a few more bucks to pay for the hitherto free licenses. At the moment it is not yet clear whether the changes fully satisfy the requests from the European Commission, which limited itself to remembering that Google does not necessarily have to pay the licenses for its applications: what is required is that it gives competitors free access to Android and does not benefit from doing so. However, Google appealed the July fine.
