Reply to post: "It's been quite clear for some time that funding development"

"It's been quite clear for some time that funding development"

I think you're confusing cause and effect. Advertising is the only reason why Android exists, not vice versa. Android was needed and designed from the ground up to hoard users' data to sustain the lucrative Google ads business.

Google could have charged for its mobile OS to fund its development - but the plan was to give it away for free (more or less) to spread it as much as possible, so it would have greatly sustained the ads business - and the plan worked, especially outside US where Apple expensive phones have less market share.

All Google's products are designed that way - lure "users" into something that looks "free" while squeezing out any useful data from them.

That's why also Google leverage open source so much - it's a way to actually reduce the investments on products it has to give away, to maximize the returns from the ads operations.

All you need is to separate the ads business from the software one. It's clear that any company combining both business will work do deny users any kind of privacy, and because software today has access to any personal data, needs to be regulated to protect them.