Google Mobile Services

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Google Mobile Services

Basic Information
Release Year	2012
Product Type	Software, Smartphones, Smartwatches
In Production	Yes
Official Website	https://www.android.com/gms

Google Mobile Services (GMS) is a suite of proprietary Android applications and APIs produced by Google that has existed since 2012. GMS provides both user-facing apps and developer-facing features for other apps via Google Play Services.

This includes:

• the core suite of Google apps (GApps), such as
  • Chrome
  • Gmail
  • Maps
  • Play Store

• Play Services (which contains gms in its package-name)
• Play Integrity and Play Protect
• SafetyCore
• Android Auto

Consumer-impact summary

Overview of concerns that arise from the conduct towards users of the product (if applicable):

• User Freedom
• User Privacy
• Business Model
• Market Control

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GMS comes preinstalled on Google certified devices, leading to high market saturation among Android devices.^{[citation needed]} It's components are installed as system applications, making removal through standard methods impossible.

Google incentivizes developers to use (and depend on) GMS APIs in order to lock them in. This increases dependence on GMS and contributes to Google's monopoly on Android.^{[citation needed]}

Some examples of 3rd-party apps that break when Play Services is disabled:

• WhatsApp
• Discord

Most of Google's own apps deliberately refuse to work when Play Services is disabled.^{[citation needed]}

Incidents

Add one-paragraph summaries of incidents below in sub-sections, which link to each incident's main article while linking to the main article and including a short summary. It is acceptable to create an incident summary before the main page for an incident has been created. To link to the page use the "Hatnote" or "Main" templates.

If the company has numerous incidents then format them in a table (see Amazon for an example).

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This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents related to this product. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Google Mobile Services category.

Android System Safety Core silent install

Main article: Android System SafetyCore

On January 22, 2025, Google quietly rolled out Android System SafetyCore to all Android devices via GMS. The installation of the program neither informed consumers that it was installed, nor did it request consumers to install it onto their devices.

Products

• Google Search app (circa 2009)
• YouTube app (insert release date): Paywalled "background play" and "offline" behind Premium
• ...

See also

Link to relevant theme articles or companies with similar incidents.

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