Wow, that one is close to being hilarious. Big tech companies are the target of hate these days. Google was hit by another antitrust lawsuit by no less than 36 states about their handling of applications side loading on Android. In summary, it is so cumbersome to side load an app on Android, thanks to security measures, that it makes it hard for competing App Store to compete.

Google makes the sideloading process unnecessarily cumbersome and impractical by adding superfluous, misleading, and discouraging security warnings and by deterring users by requiring them to grant permission multiple times for a single app installation (discussed in more detail in Sections I.C. and I.D. below). The effect of Google’s conduct is to practically eliminate competition in Android app distribution.

Android is supposedly more permissive than Apple’s App Store and yet, it looks like it’s not enough. This lawsuit is a prime example on why I don’t like the current trend. People want more open platforms but it’s never enough. If Apple is ever forced to make profound changes to their App Store business, it will be the beginning of a worrisome trend that I prefer wouldn’t happen. I recently wrote about not wanting another Android platform. Now, I should say that I don’t want another Windows platform disguised in a mobile device. To me, it is scary and close in nature to the same problem of who should own encryption keys. Raging ransomeware cyberattacks are signs of what is coming on mobile devices if we open them up too much, just like Windows.