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Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

forum.swype.com

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Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#141

Post by Oletros »

fleitz wrote: post #140
userbinator wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't Google want users to have such powerful control over their devices? It's always explained like this: Because it's "simpler." Because "things will break if the user does something wrong." Because "the average user won't need it." Those same poor excuses have been responsible for so much loss of privacy and freedom elsewhere, not just by Google. To me, they're deliberately preventing users from having too…

Because Android isn't the product, you are the product.

Why people still uses that false meme?

Can you explain me why people is the product if they use Android?

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#142

Post by jljljl »

Karunamon wrote: post #125
jljljl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you provide random dummy data for a Contact List permission without a) running the risk of crashing the app, or b) making it obvious to the app that it's receiving dummy data? Is android supposed to return a well structured list of fake names and emails? Would instagram show me a list of made up names and user id's if I faked my contacts?

http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ This exists. Something similar is hardly out of Google's reach.

Think about the experience for a second:

1. An app asks for permission to access my contacts 2. I decline to give permission 3. The app churns for a few seconds, then suddenly returns a list of names that i have never seen before, including fake numbers and addresses (a list of fake names would be too easy to detect as a fake response).

We're probably better off just returning nothing

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#143

Post by mortenjorck »

Karunamon wrote: post #123
mortenjorck wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens today if an app requires address book access but the user has an empty address book? What happens today if an app requires calendar access but the user has never added anything to the calendar? What happens today if an app requires location but the user is out of both GPS coverage and wi-fi range? App Ops should simply be passing apps the results of the above cases when denying them to a an app built for…

The app receives an empty address book (as opposed to NO address book), an empty calendar (as opposed to NO calendar), and in your location case, the app gets the "rough" location provided by the cell network. Throw nulls (or better yet, exceptions) where an application expects parseable data (and given the current permission paradigm, has every right to expect usable data) and you can very reasonably expect breakage…

I don't think you're understanding what I'm suggesting.

Yes, throw nulls if the APK identifies itself as supporting App Ops. If it doesn't, well, of course it's going to break when you throw nulls at it. Build a compatibility layer as I described above, and the app will continue to get parseable data when it requests parseable data.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#144

Post by jljljl »

mindslight wrote: post #131
Karunamon wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a breach of privacy. That's the developer enforcing their TOS. It is within my right to say that if you won't give me location information for (ad targeting/basic functionality), you can not use my app. Which is fine, but I'd also expect one-stars for that kind of behavior.

> It is within my right to say that if you won't give me location information for ad targeting, you can not use my app I disagree. That question is exactly what we're discussing here. What you just said clashes with what you said earlier: > Apps are guests in the user's back yard, not the other way around. Either a developer is able to enforce their desired "TOS" on the user's device, or they cannot. I am on the side…

It's not constraining the behavior of the user's device, it's constraining the functionality of the app. If an app needs certain permissions to function, and the user denies those permissions, why should the app be forced to run with falsified data?

Imagine that the use case is not ad targeting, but rather emergency weather broadcasts based on your location. Do we still want the app to receive randomized data?

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#145

Post by fleitz »

Oletros wrote: post #141
fleitz wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Android isn't the product, you are the product.

Why people still uses that false meme? Can you explain me why people is the product if they use Android?

Because given away for free to generate traffic on google properties, therefore Google will not ship features in Android that would be detrimental to the monetization of an android user by allowing them to control their privacy.

Personally, given the existing complexity of Android I find it funny that they said it would make things too 'complex' to give users control of their privacy.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#146

Post by mindslight »

jljljl wrote: post #144
mindslight wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is within my right to say that if you won't give me location information for ad targeting, you can not use my app I disagree. That question is exactly what we're discussing here. What you just said clashes with what you said earlier: > Apps are guests in the user's back yard, not the other way around. Either a developer is able to enforce their desired "TOS" on the user's device, or they cannot. I am on the side…

It's not constraining the behavior of the user's device, it's constraining the functionality of the app. If an app needs certain permissions to function, and the user denies those permissions, why should the app be forced to run with falsified data? Imagine that the use case is not ad targeting, but rather emergency weather broadcasts based on your location. Do we still want the app to receive randomized data?

If the user configures the emergency weather broadcast app to receive randomized data, yes obviously.

The app should be "forced" to run with modified data, because that is what the user explicitly chose. The whole point of an app is that it runs on the user's device, meaning it should be ultimately acting in the user's best interest, despite any post-facto desires of the developer. That is the whole idea of ownership - I can drive my current Honda to browse for new cars at the Toyota dealership, etc.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#147

Post by Karunamon »

mindslight wrote: post #131
Karunamon wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a breach of privacy. That's the developer enforcing their TOS. It is within my right to say that if you won't give me location information for (ad targeting/basic functionality), you can not use my app. Which is fine, but I'd also expect one-stars for that kind of behavior.

> It is within my right to say that if you won't give me location information for ad targeting, you can not use my app I disagree. That question is exactly what we're discussing here. What you just said clashes with what you said earlier: > Apps are guests in the user's back yard, not the other way around. Either a developer is able to enforce their desired "TOS" on the user's device, or they cannot. I am on the side…

That doesn't clash at all. It's maximal freedom on both sides - you decide under what terms the developer's program runs. If the developer doesn't like those terms, the app doesn't run.

Either the user accepts the developers desired TOS on their device, and they get to run the app, or they do not.

I'd go a lower level than the legal contract. If the app says it wants X to run, and you deny X, the app is under no obligation to run. Your back yard, their code.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#148

Post by itsameta4 »

dublinben wrote: post #77
jgalt212 wrote: post #44

I have a Droid Moto X. Swype was pre-installed, so I can't even uninstall it without rooting my phone. I got an Android phone b/c I didn't want to be one of Steve's sheep, but given some of the comments here it's probably safer to be in his flock than not.

Perhaps you are thinking of Swiftkey. Swype is definitely not preinstalled on Moto X phones.

Republic Wireless has a deal with them.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#149

Post by presootto »

Frazzydee wrote: post #27
sikhnerd wrote: post #7

Every time I see something like this come up, it really makes me wonder how many other apps out there are doing the same thing and getting away with it. Unless you root your phone and use something like the mentioned android firewall, or go whole-hog and install Cyanogenmod, what chance do you have to guard against this? I assume ios users are likely in the same boat, but with even less chance of recourse.

Google seems to have no interest in protecting android users from this either. There was an app called 'App Ops' that gave android users the ability to choose which permissions they wanted to grant applications. No root required. Get too many notifications from an app, or don't need location functionality? You used to be able to turn these features off one-by-one for each app. You could also see the last time an app…

There's always going to be some conflict of interest when the company who builds the OS is the same one that runs the advertising platform.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#150

Post by jljljl »

jljljl wrote: post #144
mindslight wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is within my right to say that if you won't give me location information for ad targeting, you can not use my app I disagree. That question is exactly what we're discussing here. What you just said clashes with what you said earlier: > Apps are guests in the user's back yard, not the other way around. Either a developer is able to enforce their desired "TOS" on the user's device, or they cannot. I am on the side…

It's not constraining the behavior of the user's device, it's constraining the functionality of the app. If an app needs certain permissions to function, and the user denies those permissions, why should the app be forced to run with falsified data? Imagine that the use case is not ad targeting, but rather emergency weather broadcasts based on your location. Do we still want the app to receive randomized data?

Responding to the response inline:

I'm not sure denying an app permission to use your data is the same as explicitly choosing to provide that app with randomized data.

If you want to ensure that the system is only doing what the user explicitly chose to do, you need to provide prompts that let the user explicitly choose to provide randomized data.

And at that point, we're probably better off just returning nothing.

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