> developers will have the same freedom to distribute their apps directly to users
You have here Google making a statement it can't actually fulfill and one that it knows it can't fulfill. So Google is willfully lying here.
The minute Google has a technical capability to control what applications run on Android it's out of their hands. It is in the hands of courts, governments, dictators and authoritarians. That's just the nature of the world - Google has to obey the law and Google doesn't make the laws.
I guess it sounds hysterical, but in that sense, this is an absolutely massive loss of freedom for the entire planet as communication power that rested with individual choice is now transferred wholesale back to governments by this decision.
You have here Google making a statement it can't actually fulfill and one that it knows it can't fulfill. So Google is willfully lying here.
The minute Google has a technical capability to control what applications run on Android it's out of their hands. It is in the hands of courts, governments, dictators and authoritarians. That's just the nature of the world - Google has to obey the law and Google doesn't make the laws.
I guess it sounds hysterical, but in that sense, this is an absolutely massive loss of freedom for the entire planet as communication power that rested with individual choice is now transferred wholesale back to governments by this decision.