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Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#81

Post by propogandist »

mav3rick wrote: post #55
propogandist wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The digital wellbeing app is pretty much spyware. If you disable Google Play Service, the Wellbeing app (which cannot be disabled) will constantly complain that it won't work properly... The app has, among other permissions, the requirement to have full network access. Similarly, if you use the default Gboard (keyboard) on Android, it's constantly trying to call home to Google servers, as with most other stock apps.…

Google Play Services are the crux of the implementation of core services. If you're not okay with that don't buy the phone or install something else on it.

This is a weak argument to defend your employer.

I'll use a version of AOSP without the data harvesting spyware baked in, although Google seems to be keen on shutting aspects of it down.

Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#82

Post by cesarb »

guerrilla wrote: post #77
throwaway189262 wrote: post #66

We desperately need a standardized open source phone. The raspberry pi of phones. Linux may be a better platform than AOSP. Android and iOS were designed for control first. Control over apps, control over the store, over what users are allowed to do. If you don't need any of that to make money why not run a regular Linux distro. Opens source phones will never be mainstream. Same as desktop Linux. But it would be nice…

It seems like we're getting there with Prism [1] and Pine [2]. Seems to be a couple more I've never heard of [3]. [1]. https://puri.sm/products/ [2]. https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ [3]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_pho...

> > We desperately need a standardized open source phone. The raspberry pi of phones.

> It seems like we're getting there with Prism [1] and Pine [2]. Seems to be a couple more I've never heard of [3].

But are they standardized? That is, can I have a single "phone OS" distribution which can be installed unmodified in all of them? We're already there with the Raspberry Pi: the 64-bit Fedora I installed on mine boots through UEFI, and the same Fedora install should boot on any other UEFI-using 64-bit ARM board. That's the only way to get the necessary scale; otherwise, the community will stay split in separate silos (a purism silo, a pine64 silo, etc).

Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#83

Post by xenospn »

Uptrenda wrote: post #75

Copying boring social apps seems like such a waste of the talent and creativity at Google. They should focus more on innovation instead of this kind of cut-throat bs.

Google doesn’t innovate anymore. They acquire and throw most of their acquisitions in the trash.

Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#84

Post by tmpz22 »

jadbox wrote: post #46
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #42

What truly flabbergasts me is that businesses today still feel that Google's platforms and services can help their business. The reality is, if you are a business, Google is your competitor . Which means Google getting a hold of any information about your business should be part of your threat model . You may not be in Google's sights today, but you very well could be tomorrow. And they will use your usage of their p…

In my direct experience being in SV startups for over 10yrs, this is also true for all major tech companies. They all abuse their platform power to enter into a new market segment. Just a few days ago this journal was published: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-tech-startup-echo-bezos-...

What's funny to me is despite wielding all this power and network effects - when tech giants try to enter new markets they fail at a seemingly higher rate then start-ups and other businesses. They have a ten mile head start and are still losing the race consistently. Which is probably good for most consumers.

Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#85

Post by robin_reala »

sli wrote: post #62
mav3rick wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Play Services are the crux of the implementation of core services. If you're not okay with that don't buy the phone or install something else on it.

It may feel good to say it, because you get to offload the responsibility onto consumers rather than the entity committing questionable (but legal) acts, but in reality "just don't do X" is never going to affect any sort of change. It's simply shifting blame onto people with no power to do anything. More to the point, you're essentially recommending that everyone pony up $1000+ for an iPhone. None of those lesser kno…

$399+, not $1000+.

Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#86

Post by aasasd »

izacus wrote: post #70
aasasd wrote: post #21

Android 10 (on googlephones) has a feature called ‘digital wellbeing’ that can measure how much I gawk at the screen, and show that to me. Interesting, I think, let's see if that data stays locally. The only piece of info on data usage that I've found is a link to Google's overarching privacy policy. Oy vey. Some data-processing features in the settings are marked with ‘data stays on the phone’—but this one isn't. So…

> Annoying thing is, I'd quite want to use the voice assistant. Do I like to fiddle with integrations and workflows? Oh boy. Damn well I do. Do I know that my voiceprint won't turn up on Google's servers the minute I use the assistant? Nope. Google Assistant uses servers to run voice recognition so it's certain that your voice print will end up on their servers. Same for Apple Siri and pretty much any of them. As far…

I think explanations on the phone or in the online help say somewhere that the assistant sort of can recognize commands offline, even before Pixel 4. But I may be mistaken—can't find that now.

Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#87

Post by thatcat »

mav3rick wrote: post #79
sli wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may feel good to say it, because you get to offload the responsibility onto consumers rather than the entity committing questionable (but legal) acts, but in reality "just don't do X" is never going to affect any sort of change. It's simply shifting blame onto people with no power to do anything. More to the point, you're essentially recommending that everyone pony up $1000+ for an iPhone. None of those lesser kno…

You're not giving a company the right to ship their own implementation. GMS Core really is the implementation. You want the phone to work without that. How delusional. Can an Apple phone work without core services ?

Some of them can. Look up postmarketOS

Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#88

Post by tdeck »

jstanley wrote: post #8
lightgreen wrote: post #7

> collects sensitive Android user data Looks like it’s basic metrics like how often the app is launched. It is not sensitive (user content of the apps would be sensitive). It is an antitrust issue but barely a security/privacy issue.

Call me old-fashioned, but if anybody knows when or how often I'm executing a particular program on my own hardware, that is a privacy issue.

I'm not familiar with the details, but it's very likely these data are k-anonymized and sampled to make it impossible to identify a particular person.

Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#89

Post by Nullabillity »

aasasd wrote: post #86
izacus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Annoying thing is, I'd quite want to use the voice assistant. Do I like to fiddle with integrations and workflows? Oh boy. Damn well I do. Do I know that my voiceprint won't turn up on Google's servers the minute I use the assistant? Nope. Google Assistant uses servers to run voice recognition so it's certain that your voice print will end up on their servers. Same for Apple Siri and pretty much any of them. As far…

I think explanations on the phone or in the online help say somewhere that the assistant sort of can recognize commands offline, even before Pixel 4. But I may be mistaken—can't find that now.

Yeah, pretty sure "offline Google Now" was a selling point back in the.. 4.4 days?

Re: Google reportedly peeks into Android data to gain edge over third-party apps

#90

Post by tdeck »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #32
0xWTF wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say, my experience working with Google is that they actually resist the acquisition of information that's not in the public domain in a lot of ways. I've seen them fund another company's development team to do work, even buying the other company hardware for the task, just to avoid the data. I've seen them consciously exclude engineering tools you'd think are right up their alley, because the tools would ac…

> If they're collecting this data, I strongly suspect they feel obligated to, maybe even compelled too. Possibly for purposes like app security, user security, OS security, user experience, etc. This doesn't really make sense; none of those are compelling use cases for such invasive data collection. And this additional new tracking does not seem very useful for security, and even then there's no reason for all of the…

Play collects certain metrics about app usage because app developers want them (not sure how much overlap there is with what's described in the article).

Source:

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

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