NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Skyhook vs. Google Lawsuit: The Missing Evil
Skyhook vs. Google Lawsuit: The Missing Evil
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000854.html
I've been pouring through the newly released emails and other
documents related to the Skyhook Wireless vs. Google lawsuit,
searching for the "smoking guns" that many people sending me messages
have assured me are there ( http://j.mp/jM3v1x [Business Insider] ).
I have no inside information about this matter. But after reading
through the mass of (generally lightly redacted) correspondence
several times, I've been unable to find a reasonable basis for a
lawsuit in Skyhook's concerns relating to this case.
To be sure, I personally might not have handled every aspect of this
situation in exactly the same manner as Google did, but the overall
thrust of events in context does not seem unreasonable, and in fact in
significant ways is actually reassuring.
There are complex technical and policy aspects to all this, but let's
start with a basic fact -- email archives are a highly imperfect
mechanism for understanding the full scope of most situations.
Typically email represents only a portion of the whole scope in any
decision-making process, with offline communications such as phone
calls, video conferences, face-to-face communications, and so on also
being involved.
And email is very easy to take out of context -- that's why I would
urge anyone interested in really understanding this matter to take the
time for a careful perusal of the entire email archive that's been
made available, not just the "selected highlights" emails that have
been getting most of the attention.
The importance of context is especially highlighted when we consider
another important facet of email transcripts. Any healthy corporate
decision-making process will often by definition include a complex
give and take of ideas submitted but ultimately rejected, as
participants better understand the issues and "home in" on formal
positions.
In the Google case under discussion, this is what happened, and that's
exactly as it should be.
By contrast, it's when complex questions instantly yield a chorus of
compliant "yes, sir!" responses that one really needs to be concerned
about corporate processes.
Skyhook's accusations essentially revolve around claims that Google
unfairly acted to keep Skyhook's geolocation system off of Android
mobile devices.
It's important to note at the outset that while Android is almost
entirely an open source environment, "open" can't reasonably be used
as an excuse for "chaos" when we're talking about extremely complex
software and services ecosystems, interacting with complicated mobile
hardware platforms and cellular networks.
This is especially true with Android, since most Android users don't
view the operating system in isolation, but in conjunction with
desirable Google-provided services such as Gmail, Google Maps, and
various others.
Google doesn't charge manufacturers to use Android, but Google has a
completely justifiable interest in not seeing Android fragment in ways
that would significantly damage the user experience.
Similarly, it seems utterly reasonable that if manufacturers are going
to make use of underlying Google-provided services (such as
geolocation back-end processing), reasonable Google compatibility
standards for the handling of associated data should not be undermined
by those manufacturers.
This gets us to the heart of Skyhook's complaints. Since I want to
keep this as non-technical as possible I'll be simplifying a bit, but
hopefully the chronology will stay relatively clear. Again, this is
my own interpretation, based solely on the released emails and
associated docs.
Google became concerned when it suddenly learned -- reportedly
primarily through public channels and without earlier warning -- that
a major Android phone manufacturer was planning to alter a key part of
the Android geolocation system to mainly use (or at least usually
favor) Skyhook's Wi-Fi location system rather than Google's similar
system that is already part of the Android environment.
There was also a public implication that Skyhook's geolocation
technology was more accurate than Google's.
Google felt blindsided by this, and Google engineers argued that
recent improvements and testing showed that Skyhook was not superior
to Google's own system, and that Google had perhaps not been
sufficiently proactive in terms of making this fact known.
There was also a major concern that the mechanism of this
manufacturer's Skyhook integration into Android would continue to use
the Google geolocation back-end processing services, but cut off
Google from key data that was crucial for Google to continue providing
and improving these services. There were also concerns that the
Skyhook integration would commingle two different types of location
information -- Skyhook Wi-Fi data and GPS data -- potentially
contaminating Google's back-end database. These are valid technical
issues.
The released emails show discussions among the various involved
parties regarding how to best resolve this situation. Google
apparently had not originally anticipated a manufacturer using a
non-Google geolocation system in conjunction with the Google back-end
processing, and felt that if a manufacturer wanted to use non-Google
geolocation, they should not use the (expensive to provide) Google
geolocation back-end in conjunction with the non-Google data, given
the cutoff of important data to Google and the data contamination
risks noted above. Google asserted that uses violating these
principles was not in keeping with Android compatibility requirements.
It is important to note at this point that while Google employees
involved in these discussions realized that compatibility requirements
could exert strong controls over manufacturers' behaviors, it is clear
in the full context of the emails that Google wanted to be sure that
requirements had a strong engineering basis and would not be
arbitrary.
Matters appear to have come to a head when it turned out (as I
understand the events), that a different manufacturer was in a similar
situation, and had already shipped a relatively small number of
handsets that included a problematic Skyhook integration. When Google
reportedly granted a "waiver" to the second company (which had agreed
to quickly update the affected devices with new code), the other firm
became upset that Google didn't want to grant a waiver for handsets
that were not yet shipped (obviously, recalling already shipped phones
is a much more expensive proposition than dealing with phones that
have not already been shipped).
The first company didn't want to delay their shipping, and apparently
decided that the most prudent course was to drop Skyhook for the time
being, and get their devices out to market.
Skyhook was upset by this, so they sued Google.
That's my interpretation of the sequence, anyway.
Obviously, this is a complicated and multifaceted technical, policy,
and even public relations situation. For me, the primary question is
whether or not there is evil afoot, or bad faith behavior by any of
the involved parties -- and I don't see any of these in this case.
What I do see is an extraordinarily educational example of the
intricate and interrelated complexities of these technology
ecosystems -- and of how the dynamics of corporate decision making and
communications can be taken out of context in ways that in isolation
may be spun to seemingly show bad faith when in reality none is
present.
Above all, this matter demonstrates that even with the best efforts of
everyone involved, these highly technical intercompany relationships
will sometimes yield results that are not to the liking of all
involved parties. Life doesn't always work out the way that we might
have hoped.
I strongly believe that in many such situations in general, and in the
case of Skyhook's complaints regarding Google in particular, such
litigation is unnecessary, unwarranted, and in the end, likely to be
highly counterproductive.
All the best to you and yours. Please take care everyone.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
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Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com