You said: "one of the strategies was to keep the carrier's walled garden app models that were becoming popular (this was before apple) from eating Google alive

You said: "one of the strategies was to keep the carrier's walled garden app models that were becoming popular (this was before apple) from eating Google alive by demanding cuts of ad/other revenue from Google's inevitable mobile apps." Google's ad business relies on access to user data for targeting. If Google has a strategic goal to protect the ad business, it therefore also has a strategic goal to protect it's access to user data.