Google Inc. has warned US President Donald Trump´s administration that it risks endangering US national security if it goes ahead with tougher export restrictions on Huawei in a bid to continue its business with the Chinese company, which Washington has blacklisted.
Senior executives at Google are pressing US officials to exclude or exempt their company from a ban on exporting its products to Huawei without a license approved by Washington, according to three people familiar with the talks, according to the Financial Times.
The Trump administration announced the ban on the Chinese company after the collapse of the US-China trade talks, prompting protest by some of the largest US technology companies, which fear the harm and damage from the repercussions of that decision.
Specifically, Google is concerned that it may not be allowed to update the Android operating system on Huawei´s future smart phones, prompting Google to say it is driving the Chinese company to develop its own version of the operating system.
Google also says Huawei´s operating system will be more suspicious and more vulnerable to hacking, according to officials familiar with Google´s efforts to pressure Washington.
Huawei recently disclosed that it will be able to develop its own operating system in the near future.
The Chinese company has already applied for a patent for its own operating system, Huawei or Huawei Ark, in Europe and Germany.
"Google argues that it is not allowed to deal with Huawei, as Washington risks running two operating systems from Android: the original version and the hybrid version, and the hybrid version is likely to contain more errors and bugs than those found," said one of the insiders of the talks between Google and Trump. In the Google version, and therefore may expose the Huawei phones at risk of being at risk of piracy and penetration, at least from China. "
In the last few weeks, Google´s top executives have contacted the Ministry of Commerce and asked for either another extension or a complete ban on the ban, according to those familiar with the talks, so Google joined groups representing major chip makers such as Qualcomm, Of the effect of the ban on their actions.
A Commerce Ministry official said his industry and security bureau routinely responds to "corporate inquiries about the scope of regulatory requirements ... to ensure compliance by private industry" with export controls.
He added: "This is not new to this administration, and these discussions do not affect the law enforcement procedures .. The highest priority of the Ministry and the Office of Industry and Security is to protect the security of our nation."
"Like other US companies, we are dealing with the Ministry of Commerce to ensure that we are fully committed to its requirements and temporary licensing," said Google. "Our focus is on protecting the security of Google users on millions of Huawei phones in the United States and around the world."
