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Samsung does, they don't care all that much, they sell devices. ATT/Verizon (carriers) are the ones locking the phones down here (and want to lock the users into their contracts).

Its important to note as well that "unlocking" and "rooting" are very different with very different end goals. One allows you to move between phone carriers (unlocked phone), the other allows you full software control of your phone (rooting).

I think he/she is referring to bootloader unlocking, not network unlocking.

> Google is making Android harder to root Did I miss something? Could you please elaborate.

http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/9175/Android_4_3_and_SELin... and https://source.android.com/devices/tech/security/dm-verity.h...

Sorry for just dropping links, I'm not particularly well versed in this area.

It's getting harder because they keep adding/enabling countermeasures like ASLR, NX, RELRO, FORTIFY_SOURCE

If they did, there probably wouldn't be a $17k bounty for unlocking the phone.