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XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

chaos.social

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Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#21

Post by juliushuijnk »

I used to have a privacy policy in a tweet. That worked for many years, but updating my offline apps (no backend, no analytics) always took multiple times. Until it just didn't pass. I had probably around 20 mails back and forth, where I pointed out that the tweet was according to all the requirements for the policy, but they kept rejecting.

Finally a human responded and said they just couldn't use social posts because of the comments or something like that. That there was zero risk for the end-user did not make a difference.

Since I suspected to be talking to an AI, I asked to mention 'cow' in the next response as a way to make clear I was talking to the human. The response was either by an AI, or a human who was able to express any humor:

> We appreciate you getting back to us and we apologize for any inconvenience this is causing you.

> Yes, you are communicating to a human being and per your request, please see the word "cow".

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#22

Post by Marsymars »

kccqzy wrote: post #6

I don't get this complaint. Of course I expect to find a privacy policy. And of course you can choose to write it in an unconventional way. Saying no data sent out of your device is a privacy policy. Saying it in a fancy way that contrasts between this app and something else is also a privacy policy.

> Of course I expect to find a privacy policy.

If the app store allowed you to specific in app metadata that no data leaves the device, and that was enforced by device policy, I wouldn't expect a privacy policy.

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#23

Post by Ologn »

fanf2 wrote: post #15
Ologn wrote: post #4

I had a small role in helping Jamie port XScreenSaver to Android. It was fun working with someone whose writings I have been reading for thirty years or so, and I learned a lot from him (like the difference between HAVE and USE in C, or how to architect and run a project). Patches are always welcome! Jamie (and/or other helpers) ported things like X11/Xlib to OpenGL, and then OpenGL to OpenGLES for iOS and Android. J…

C doesn’t have things called HAVE and USE. Sounds to me like something to do with Xscreensaver’s build system?

I mean the conventions of HAVE and USE prefixed macros in C, as opposed to the C found in K&R or C17-ISO/IEC 9899:2018.

Like this (they use HAS, not HAVE)

https://perl5.git.perl.org/perl5.git/blob/HEAD:/pp.c#l1259

or this

https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/master/st.c#L115

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#24

Post by MostlyStable »

compiler-guy wrote: post #16

Dozens of innocuous-seeming apps collect private data. I wish the world wasn't filled with bad actors, but it is. So having a basic privacy policy even for this is annoying, but the answer to "It's a screen saver, why in the world do I need this?" is "because bad actors do bad stuff so everyone suffers."

I wonder if this couldn't be solved at the OS level. Maybe there could be some kind of a flag that, if the OS sees it, the app is not allowed to store/save/communicate/whatever. Then, any app that has this flag doesn't need a privacy policy because it is OS restricted from doing anything that might require such a policy?

I suggest this as someone who has no experience whatsoever in making apps or mobile operating systems (beyond being a user of one), so I don't know how practical it is.

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#25

Post by jasonjayr »

saurik wrote: post #2

It really sucks that these privacy policies Google requires everyone to have also have to be hosted on a normal website. This means the privacy policy can change on a whim, and it means you can't read them until after you have already sent your IP address to the developer (as part of connecting to their website).

They don't use a content-hash (or some other means) to detect changes?

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#26

Post by jpalawaga »

dvngnt_ wrote: post #12
atum47 wrote: post #9

I had to rewrite my Google privacy policy at least 4 times before they accepted it. This is the current accepted one: https://victorribeiro.com/privacy_policy.html (i copied from somewhere else and changed it). This is the one they rejected: https://victorribeiro.com/privacy_policy.txt

I mean... the accepted one is better formatted. i would have done the same tbh

it took something easily readable and straightward and transformed it into something nobody is going to read.

Is that really better?

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#27

Post by dblohm7 »

MostlyStable wrote: post #24
compiler-guy wrote: post #16

Dozens of innocuous-seeming apps collect private data. I wish the world wasn't filled with bad actors, but it is. So having a basic privacy policy even for this is annoying, but the answer to "It's a screen saver, why in the world do I need this?" is "because bad actors do bad stuff so everyone suffers."

I wonder if this couldn't be solved at the OS level. Maybe there could be some kind of a flag that, if the OS sees it, the app is not allowed to store/save/communicate/whatever. Then, any app that has this flag doesn't need a privacy policy because it is OS restricted from doing anything that might require such a policy? I suggest this as someone who has no experience whatsoever in making apps or mobile operating sys…

Android has a permission for internet access. It's still there, but enabled for everybody by default. This was an intentional decision on the part of Google.

Back in the day, you could install Android apps that explicitly did not use the internet permission. You could make your installation decisions based on whether apps requested that permission and whether it made sense for them to do so. Some AOSP mods even let you disable that permission for apps (though YMMV as to how well that actually worked in practice).

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#28

Post by GuB-42 »

Marsymars wrote: post #22
kccqzy wrote: post #6

I don't get this complaint. Of course I expect to find a privacy policy. And of course you can choose to write it in an unconventional way. Saying no data sent out of your device is a privacy policy. Saying it in a fancy way that contrasts between this app and something else is also a privacy policy.

> Of course I expect to find a privacy policy. If the app store allowed you to specific in app metadata that no data leaves the device, and that was enforced by device policy, I wouldn't expect a privacy policy.

Device policies are actually harder than it may seem (to enforce that no data leaves the device). Here is a comment by a Google employee. It is about the internet access permission, but this part illustrates that side channels exist.

> Requests to be able to remove internet access are almost always really requests to “make sure this app can’t get any data off the device.” However, just removing this permission does not actually give that guarantee; there are numerous side-channels apps can use to still get data off the device. An obvious one is to launch the web browser with a URL for their web site, which has stashed in it a bunch of data they want to exfiltrate. And there are many others. It is really hard to actually give a guarantee that no data can be exfiltrated, while still giving enough capability for most apps to be functional.

Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/ci4tdq/were_on_...

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#29

Post by dvngnt_ »

jpalawaga wrote: post #26
dvngnt_ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... the accepted one is better formatted. i would have done the same tbh

it took something easily readable and straightward and transformed it into something nobody is going to read. Is that really better?

for a business yes

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#30

Post by qwertox »

atum47 wrote: post #9

I had to rewrite my Google privacy policy at least 4 times before they accepted it. This is the current accepted one: https://victorribeiro.com/privacy_policy.html (i copied from somewhere else and changed it). This is the one they rejected: https://victorribeiro.com/privacy_policy.txt

Cool homepage, but the Qubes game doesn't load :(
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