Android Phones in China

A few months ago, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a white paper that claim’s Google has too much control over China’s smartphone sector. Having recently purchased an Android phone in China myself, I can honestly say I don’t think China needs to worry that much. Unlike the US where Android phones come preloaded with Google’s many services, most Android phones sold in China are heavily modified to the point that they no longer bare much resemblance to the Google’s designed experience. For example, phones bought through a contract with China Mobile come prepackaged with China Mobile’s own map app, email app, app market etc. This allows the Chinese telecom companies to cut Google out of the revenue stream. In fact, Google’s official app store does not even support paid apps in China. Perhaps more importantly, user data doesn’t go through Google’s servers. Given the recent news of US surveillance (aka PRISM), this might sound like good news for Chinese phone users. In actuality, a recent study has found that many Chinese apps have been modified to upload data that is not related to their functionality in any way. In fact, 34.5% of apps studied upload all user data it can get its hands on, including address book information, phone call logs and instant messaging history. While the backbone of the system is made by Google, the China Android market is its own ecosystem, which Google has little control over.