Nuked The deal would reportedly involve promoting the Google assistant and the play store over Samsung’s own alternatives. The Korean manufacturer would reportedly promote Samsung’s Google assistant.
Samsung is the world’s biggest smartphone company and by far the leading Android handset maker in the US. While its phones use Google’s Android operating system, Samsung has consistently tried to build out an ecosystem of its own software that runs atop Android.
Samsung reportedly agreed to tone down some of its tweaks in 2014. Potential terms of the deal have n’t been disclosed. Google has a multi-billion-dollar agreement with Apple to be the default search provider in the Safari browser.
The play store and Google’s mandatory service bundling on Android phones have received heightened antitrust scrutiny. A deal with Samsung could undermine Google’s argument that the Android platform enables strong competition.
‘Samsung remains committed to our own ecosystem and services,’ says a Samsung spokesperson.’at the same time, Samsung closely works with Google and other partners to offer the best mobile experiences for our users’.
