Keep Android Open
advocacy campaign opposing Google's mandatory Android developer verification policy
Keep Android Open is a campaign launched in October 2025 to oppose a Google policy requiring all Android app developers to register their identities with Google before their applications can be installed on certified Android devices, including via sideloading. The campaign by software developers and F-Droid board member Marc Prud'hommeaux is hosted at keepandroidopen.org. It has attracted support from free and open-source software organisations and digital rights groups, as well as technology companies, across more than twenty countries.
The campaign's argument is that the verification requirement gives Google unilateral control over which software may run on certified Android devices regardless of how it is distributed, threatening independent app ecosystems, privacy-focused or custom ROMs.
In February 2026, the campaign published an open letter to Alphabet Inc. leadership calling for the policy to be withdrawn; by late April 2026 it had attracted signatures from more than sixty organisations across more than twenty countries.
Background
Android's sideloading model
Unlike Apple's iOS, Android has permitted the installation of applications obtained outside the official Google Play store as a built-in capability. Users can enable installation from unknown sources in their device settings, allowing them to install application packages (APK files) downloaded from third-party stores, shared directly by developers, or obtained through repositories such as F-Droid, Droidify, NeoStore or Obtainium.
This openness has been cited as a distinguishing and fundamental characteristic of the Android platform and has underpinned a broad ecosystem of independent software and alternative application stores, including custom ROMs such as GrapheneOS and LineageOS.
Google's announcement
On 25 August 2025, Google announced a new mandatory Android developer verification programme, which would force any app installed on a certified Android device, regardless of whether it comes from Google Play, a third-party store, or direct sideloading to be linked to a verified developer account. The verification process requires developers to:
Provide Google with personal information including the developer's legal name, address, email address, and phone number;
Provide government-issued photographic identification;
Pay a one-time US$25 fee and create a Google payment profile;
Agree to Google's Terms and Conditions;
Submit evidence of the application's private signing key; and
Declare all current and future application identifiers.
“Keep Android Open” enters the record as advocacy campaign opposing Google's mandatory Android developer verification policy. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Keep, Android and advocacy can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Keep Android Open” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Keep, Android and advocacy provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q139855769. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2025 and 2026.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Keep Android Open”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Keep Android Open primary sources, Keep Android Open archive and Keep research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Keep Android Open”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Keep Android Open” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.