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

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

#91

Post by okennedy »

cesarb wrote: post #82
guerrilla wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

The Librem 5's PureOS is very nearly stock Debian and the Purism devs have been very diligent about getting their stuff upstreamed into mainline Linux and Debian.

Pine doesn't employ software developers, but the Manjaro and Mobian communities are also doing their best to stay as close to stock desktop distributions as possible.

A key difference between the Pi and both the Librem 5 and Pinephone is that the latter two made an explicit design choice to use stock-standard (nearly) blob-free hardware. Unlike Raspbian, which relies on a custom kernel, PureOS, Mobian, Manjaro, etc... are very nearly standard desktop operating systems, with relatively minor tweaks to system defaults. Heck, PureOS and Manjaro are desktop operating systems just running on the phone with mobile-oriented shell .

There was a nice, related post on this from Purism a few days ago: https://puri.sm/posts/investing-in-real-convergence/

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

#92

Post by izacus »

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, but there's no guarantee that it'll do recognition on device (you can't force it). So it's not really useful from privacy perspective.

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

#93

Post by extropy »

cptskippy wrote: post #53
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…

Their apps require weird/unnecessary permissions. Google Maps now requires access to monitor Physical Activity if you use Location Sharing.

That seems a reasonable thing to ask for location sharing. Probably really used for the timeline though.

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/10/privacy/chan...

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

#94

Post by mgraczyk »

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…

You can disable app-usage access for the digital wellbeing app in the system settings. Just search for "wellbeing", click into it, click the menu, then "turn off usage access".

Google doesn't need this tool to track usage statistics for ads. The ads SDK used by app developers is orders of magnitude more useful as a data source.

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

#95

Post by fierarul »

jevgeni wrote: post #12
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.

Didn’t HN collectively loose their s..t when Microsoft did something similar with Win 10 telemetry?

Microsoft did and continues doing that, correct? I don't remember any article on them stopping that or even explain what telemetry contains.

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

#96

Post by fierarul »

jevgeni wrote: post #30
fxtentacle wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference appears to be that by now, everyone is kind of used to this behavior from Google.

True. I also think the techbro meme of “M$ bad, Google good” still has a certain hold on people's minds.

On the contrary, the current tech bro pretty much loves Microsoft ever since the cool CEO took over and deeply distrusts Google.

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

#97

Post by input_sh »

okennedy wrote: post #91
cesarb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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 t…

The Librem 5's PureOS is very nearly stock Debian and the Purism devs have been very diligent about getting their stuff upstreamed into mainline Linux and Debian. Pine doesn't employ software developers, but the Manjaro and Mobian communities are also doing their best to stay as close to stock desktop distributions as possible. A key difference between the Pi and both the Librem 5 and Pinephone is that the latter two…

Worth noting that Purism's ex-CTO seems rather pissed about the company: https://twitter.com/zlatandebian/status/1287317134423535622

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

#99

Post by coldcode »

izacus wrote: post #69
IgorPartola wrote: post #41

This is the kind of crap that convinced me to switch to Apple handsets back in the day when they were still a pain to use for various reasons (remember upgrading by connecting to iTunes with a cable?). Apple does some shady shady things but not with my privacy. Incidentally though they do have some settings you might want to check out though. One in particular let Facebook spy on your other apps so fine tune their ad…

This is a bizarre post considering that Apple collects very similar data via their analytics (there's an opt-out you need to select on your iOS device to opt out) and Apple Store itself (which counts downloads and knows about every update, install and uninstall of an app on your iOS device with no alternative option for you as a user). If you really care about your privacy in this case, Apple devices won't save you e…

No the difference with Apple is they don't make money off of your data, they make money selling you devices. Google needs to know about your data in order to sell it or ads or whatever to third parties.

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

#100

Post by euix »

propogandist wrote: post #44
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…

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.…

That's funny, maybe Huawei phones are going to have a market niche in the west!
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