According to a recent report from The Financial Times, Google is trying to make the case to the Trump administration that it needs to be able to provide technology to Huawei in the name of US national security. Google is reportedly asking for an exemption from the export ban since forcing Google to stop working with Huawei “risks creating two kinds of Android operating system: the genuine version, and a hybrid one.”
Google, like all US companies, has been banned from having business dealings with Huawei. Huawei is currently dependent on Google for its Android smartphone software, and that dependence is a good thing for the US. The Financial Times quotes “one person with knowledge of the conversations” as saying, “Google has been arguing that by stopping it from dealing with Huawei, the US risks creating two kinds of Android operating system: the genuine version and a hybrid one. The hybrid one is likely to have more bugs in it than the Google one, and so could put Huawei phones more at risk of being hacked, not least by China.”
Since Huawei is now among the biggest smartphone makers globally, this could pose a serious threat to not only Huawei device owners themselves, but to anyone sharing data with a person using a Huawei phone.
However, this argument contradicts claims Google had previously made in relation to Android when it sought to counter accusations that Android is a monopolistic, anti-competitive force.