Is It A Challenge Or Phishing.

Is it a Challenge or Phishing.

Is the Android Challenge legit or an elaborate form of phishing,or even an outright scam of sorts?It seems that the challenge has a few glaring problems:

The rules favor teams and/or individuals with financialbacking or resources. The Challenge is scored in 4 areas. I suggest that Originalityand Indispensibility are areas that favor contributors equallywhether they are poor individuals or well funded teams.However "Effective Use of the Android Platform" and "Polish and Appeal" penalize those with limited financialresources. These qualities require more time to implementthereby favoring those who could spend more time on thechallenge than those who responded to the challengein the "Willy Wonka" spirit (believing all had a chance)and had to work on the challenge in their spare time.2) Google discontinued support for the Challenge userswhile continuing to support OHA and other stakeholders(e.g., device manufacturers, MIT) thereby marginalizing/under supporting the Challenge members.
Using the Android platform, whichdespite being Linux and Java, is no picnic or walk in the park.The processing model is different (and I'll question it's necessity on a Linux platform in another post), the SDK has bugs, thedocumentation has inconsistencies (e.g., look at the variousplaces where TableLayout and table row are documented),pieces of the SDK were missing (e.g., BT, etc.) and so on.And while independents were toiling away trying to slog throughthe Android'isms and bugs, Google was actively supporting membersof the OHA (are they really on the same SDK version as we are? Are all submitters really isolated from those who had moreinside information? Access to the source. Participants who fail to win in round 1 stand to lose even more.

When you made your submission you agreed that if Google or any of the Judges developed your idea you had no recourse.What if Google/Judges never had the idea before you submitted it?Had not yet visualized it on the Android platform before the entries were submitted? Do you think you can get your idea to market faster than the multi-billion dollar Google juggernaut?In it's most perverse form isn't it all really a way for Googleto potentially get 1700+ original ideas for which they only need to pay for 50.