Nice Android smartphone you’ve got there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.

And something might, if the European Union gets its way. The EU’s proposed antitrust smackdown of Google could make new Androids more expensive, harder to use, and less secure.

On Wednesday, the EU’s European Commission announced that it would levy a fine of some $5 billion against Google for abusing the market dominance of Android, the company’s operating software, which runs on about 80 percent of the world’s smartphones. Google has 90 days to pay up and change its unfair practices, or face further fines that work out to about $15 million a day.

The European order is great news for Google competitors like Apple Inc., maker of the rival iPhone.

But I’m hard-pressed to see any benefit for the typical consumer.

Android itself has been a godsend for consumers. Google gives it away for free to phone manufacturers, making it possible for Samsung, LG, and others to compete with the beloved ­iPhone. Android is perhaps the chief reason you can buy a pocket computer of nearly magical capabilities for under $200.

Of course, Google gets a lot in return: Phone makers have to agree to run Google’s search engine and Chrome browser, which generates user data for its hyper-accurate advertising machine, which pumps out billions in revenue.

The EU said this is an abuse of market power and ordered Google to let phone makers choose alternative apps — Yahoo Search, for instance, or the Opera browser.

If enough phone makers dropped Google apps for competitors, the company might lose so much advertising revenue that it would stop giving away Android. Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, hinted as much in a Wednesday post reacting to the EU order.

So we might have to pay iPhone prices for Android phones.

I suspect that most phone makers will probably continue to install Google Search and Chrome, because those are what the customers want.

The EU is on firmer ground, though, on another aspect of Google’s practice: paying smartphone makers to ensure that only Google’s own search app is included.

This is a common business practice. Buy a new Windows computer, and it usually comes with free software from companies that have paid for the privilege of riding on your hard drive.

But these companies don’t dominate their markets like Google. Business practices that seem legitimate in a competitive marketplace can become toxic when practiced by monopolists.

Score one for the EU for telling Google that the exclusivity payoffs must stop.

The EU saved its worst idea for last: Allow phone makers to run their own customized versions of Android. Technically, Android is open-source software that developers are free to tweak, but in reality Google manages it with an iron hand. To the EU, that’s one more barrier to competition.

Maybe so, but it’s also a way to protect billions of Android users from buggy and insecure software.

Imagine a world in which there are five or 10 versions of Android. Each app would have to be adjusted to run on Samsung Android, and on LG Android, and so on and so on.

And with each new version come exciting new bugs and security flaws. Android already suffers from having too many older versions in circulation, which makes them less stable and more hackable than the systems on iPhones, most of which run on the latest Apple software.

The EU remedy could make this problem infinitely worse.

Or Google might respond by closing the source code for future versions of Android — and selling it to phone makers instead of giving it away. Again, how does that help consumers?

The EU was right when it took on Google on another matter involving shopping searches, finding that the company favored results from its own Google Shopping service over those from rival sites. It was a gaudy abuse of market power, and I’m glad the EU told Google to change its ways.

But the Android case threatens to get even bigger: The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday said he is “very interested’’ in the EU case against Google, so we may see an attack on Android on home soil.

I get it about Google’s insane amount of market power. Next to Facebook, it’s the scariest corporation on Earth. Some have called for Google to be broken up. I lean toward the idea myself, but why should Android users have to suffer?

95%

The share of smartphones worldwide that are run on Google’s Android operating system.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com.