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I wonder if this kind of behaviour is illegal under GDPR. At least it should be in my opinion.
Syncing contacts and pictures without opt-in sounds very illegal under GDPR.
Blog: https://blog.trailofbits.com/2019/11/14/introducing-iverify-...
iOS App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/iverify/id1466120520
Article in VICE: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjw474/this-app-will-tell...
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It's not all or nothing privacy. If you give up Android/Google Play (and Facebook etc.) you have a much smaller exposure. Buy an iPhone or a Jolla (or, maybe in future, PinePhone or Librem). Then use Firefox with uBO, DuckDuckGo and Fastmail. And you have a much better privacy in 2020.
> Buy...a Jolla I would absolutely love to do this, but I live in the US. Recently I visited Jolla's website and was excited to see that they offer an officially supported installation for Sony Xperia 10 and XA2 phones. I found several listings for those devices on eBay, got really excited, and almost pulled the trigger on one. I went back and read the fine print on the Jolla site and discovered that they won't sell…
Edit: didn't find much about US: https://together.jolla.com/questions/scope:all/sort:age-desc...
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Can you please list a few privacy violations that create the track record? Comparable to e.g. Apple giving Siri voice recordings to 3rd party contractors without the ability to disable it? I'm sure it'll be easy, easier than downvotes.
1. Google tracked user location even when location history was turned off. 2. Most people don't understand the full extent of Web and App Activity permissions -- they don't understand that this will allow Google to do things like parse search queries out of DuckDuckGo searches on Chrome. 3. Similarly (until recently) most people didn't realize that Google was using email info for advertising, including purchases made…
This is disingenuous. If the user uses a Google app that needs location data, of course that location will be sent to Google. This also happens on iOS.
> 3. Similarly (until recently) most people didn't realize that Google was using email info for advertising
That's how Gmail was marketed when it launched. Ads were shown based on the contents of emails. Everybody knew this.
> 5. Until consumer backlash forced them to stop, Google Maps also aggregated user wifi network names
No, Location Services collects WiFi names. Unlike on iOS [1], this is disable-able on Android, and the checkbox to do so is even shown during device setup. If you mean the Street View vans collect WiFi SSIDs, Apple does exactly the same but worse because nobody has any idea if they respect "_nomap" in the SSID (obeyed by both Mozilla and Google), and Apple won't say.
I find Apple to be far more deceptive on privacy. In addition to the location data that, unlike with Android, you cannot stop Apple from collecting, you also have the problem of having to send banking details to Apple to develop apps for your own devices. For an even bigger deception, look at Tim Cook's weasel words in interviews when asked about China's access to iCloud data. He talks about who has the keys for iMessage communications, which has absolutely nothing to do with the problem. [2]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725216
[2] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43eqpw/tim-cook-insists-c...
Edit for MarioMan: Wifi Services is not the system that collects this data but a user of Location Services. Turning it off won't stop Apple from collecting location data off your device.
Unfortunately all of these things are bandages on a sinking ship. They're technically better than nothing, but in reality they simply do not fix the problem. Even worse, it's possible (even probably) that some privacy controls simply do not do the think they say they do. You are essentially trusting a company with a rubbish track record in privacy violations to pinky swear they stop tracking you when you toggle a swi…
Exactly. Scottiestech's YouTube has some good info on how your smartphone is tracking you more than you think. Sometimes I think about building my own phone with a Raspberry Pi or use LineageOS.
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Exactly. Scottiestech's YouTube has some good info on how your smartphone is tracking you more than you think. Sometimes I think about building my own phone with a Raspberry Pi or use LineageOS.
AFAIK one of the best solutions for smartphone privacy is using a custom Android ROM without Google apps installed. Of course that means basically no 3rd party apps, but you can still get a surprising amount of functionality with just a web browser. You’ll still get tracked by your mobile provider, but I think that would happen even with a dumbphone.
... don’t use Android, period. Google did a great job with PR in the early years, but the reality has always been that your data is exploited to their ends.
What are the alternatives? The iphone is prohibitively expensive for most people, and it's unacceptable that privacy should only be available to the wealthy. There's basically an Android/iOS "duopoly" out there, and it's only getting worse. There are now bank accounts that are unusable without a smart phone app, and guess which platforms are supported...Google Play and Apple App Store. And don't even think about side…
> 7. Review your cloud sync I used an Android device for a short while a few years ago. I disabled all sync functionality and would back up to my own storage device. After an OS update, all of the sync functionality was automatically enabled and everything on the device was uploaded to Google’s services anyway. So I deleted everything that was uploaded, then deleted my google account, and bought an iPhone and swore t…
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1. Google tracked user location even when location history was turned off. 2. Most people don't understand the full extent of Web and App Activity permissions -- they don't understand that this will allow Google to do things like parse search queries out of DuckDuckGo searches on Chrome. 3. Similarly (until recently) most people didn't realize that Google was using email info for advertising, including purchases made…
> 1. Google tracked user location even when location history was turned off. This is disingenuous. If the user uses a Google app that needs location data, of course that location will be sent to Google. This also happens on iOS. > 3. Similarly (until recently) most people didn't realize that Google was using email info for advertising That's how Gmail was marketed when it launched. Ads were shown based on the content…
It's surprising enough that articles were written about it, and Google had to clarify its privacy policy to explain it.[0] It is not intuitive or natural to a normal user to believe that location data will be stored when they have a permission entitled "location" turned off. That's deceptive on Google's part, plain and simple.
On that note, I don't really care what Apple does, why would bad privacy policies on iPhone make me feel better about Google spying on me?
> That's how Gmail was marketed when it launched. Ads were shown based on the contents of emails. Everybody knew this.
Literally the next comment alongside yours is someone who didn't know this.
> If you mean the Street View vans collect WiFi SSIDs, Apple does exactly the same.
Yes, that's what I mean[1], and, again, who cares whether or not Apple does the same? We're supposed to believe this was totally expected behavior that was entirely fine, which is why Google was forced to respond and change their policies after public backlash.
Why do people do this? Why do people look at public, documented controversies and say, "there wasn't a controversy, everyone was OK with it"? This stuff isn't public knowledge, or else it wouldn't be newsworthy.
I've written about this pattern in the past[2], but I'm not going to rehash it in detail here. The short version is that every privacy accusation is denied vigorously until the story breaks that it's actually real. And then suddenly the conversation shifts and those privacy violations were all public knowledge and the controversy was overblown and nobody smart was ever surprised by them. People are paranoid until it's proven they're not, and then they're accused of over-reacting.
[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684818/google-location...
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-ad...
> 7. Review your cloud sync I used an Android device for a short while a few years ago. I disabled all sync functionality and would back up to my own storage device. After an OS update, all of the sync functionality was automatically enabled and everything on the device was uploaded to Google’s services anyway. So I deleted everything that was uploaded, then deleted my google account, and bought an iPhone and swore t…