Google the dealer meets Google the player

We have a fantastic story about something that Google is doing. It’s a little complicated. But fear not. Because I have the perfect example.

A few years back, some enterprising folks founded a company called Sigmoid Labs in Bangalore. It had just one product - an app to help rail commuters find out the status of trains, tickets and schedules. The app, thoughtfully named ‘Where is my train’ is a work of art. Perhaps you have used it. Not only was it built at a time when IRCTC was as helpful as an orange, but it also packed a bunch of great features. Offline train schedules. Live updates without GPS. No sign-up. And one more important feature. Instead of connecting to IRCTC (when it wasn’t down) to find out the latest status of your ticket, the app…read your text messages instead. Very convenient.

It got popular. Quickly. 10 million downloads later, it was the number 1 app in the travel category on the Play Store.

Then two months back, Google made an announcement. Apps could no longer get access to call logs and text messages of users. Google claimed that this was done to protect the data of its Android users. Exceptions would be made on a case-by-case basis. Companies had to apply. And Google would decide.

For apps like Where is my train, this was a huge blow. Just head over to the Play Store and read the reviews. It’s filled with users complaining that the PNR status feature doesn’t work anymore.

Now here’s the weird part. Guess who owns ‘Where is my train’?

Google. They bought them last month. 

Arundhati’s story today isn’t about this app. Like I said, this was just an example. But the story is about how Google’s decision affects companies across a range of sectors which depended on access to call and SMS logs. Sometimes for good reasons. Sometimes for not-so-good ones. It’s about why this data set is important, and why companies fight to access it. 

But at its heart, our story is about Google and its conflicts of interest which extend across the stack—right from the operating system, to third-party SDKs embedded inside apps, and sometimes, like Where is my train and Google Pay, the app itself. 

Google decides. For itself. And for others.