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Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

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Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#51

Post by swiley »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

>cars regularly send basic data

My car doesn't and I absolutely would never buy one that does even if that meant walking/taking the bus.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#53

Post by swiley »

teraflop wrote: post #25

"20X more telemetry", in terms of data usage, is a pretty meaningless statistic on its own (unless it's large enough to affect your mobile data cap or something). For instance, I would consider it a much bigger privacy violation for my phone to transmit my exact location every hour than my current CPU usage every 10 seconds.

Sending telemetry can get expensive: in situations where bandwidth/throughput is restricted people often get picky about giving PCs with Windows installed internet access because of this. It can be bad even in normal situations: My girlfriend's laptop has so much broken telemetry crap between Microsoft and HP that her applications actually get pushed into swap (or whatever it's called on Windows.)

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#54

Post by beforeolives »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

The more concerning thing about the car data is that the manafacturers resell it to third parties and those third parties have the right to resell it again. It's a mess.

As a comparison, I don't know if much of Google's data ever leaves Google.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#55

Post by dltj »

In addition to size of the data transmission being a poor measure of privacy implications (XML versus JSON anyone?), this paragraph is nonsense: "The University of Dublin professor says that this expansive data collection raises at least two major concerns. First, that the telemetry can be used to link physical devices to personal details, data that both companies are most likely exploiting for advertising purposes."

Apple doesn't have an advertising business, nor does it share that information with advertisers.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#56

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

I honestly don't mind information about crashes being sent as long as it is very sanitized and easy to disable- similar to how Fedora reports issues.

They send only a list of functions on the stack without any of the arguments or data.

Example: https://retrace.fedoraproject.org/faf/problems/bthash/?bth=3...

Where Google goes too far is sending everything in the name of security or better yet to "serve" the user.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#57

Post by chiefalchemist »

It's a long often too verbose read by "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" is unforgiving in its detailing of the past, and relentless in its fear of what the future likely holds.

Most people seem to say "oh I know they're collecting data." Unfortunately they don't - likely can't - grasp the depth and breadth. And the motive? Most will never make it that far.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism rips off the bandaid, one greepy greedy power move at a time.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#58

Post by kllrnohj »

teraflop wrote: post #25

"20X more telemetry", in terms of data usage, is a pretty meaningless statistic on its own (unless it's large enough to affect your mobile data cap or something). For instance, I would consider it a much bigger privacy violation for my phone to transmit my exact location every hour than my current CPU usage every 10 seconds.

Which Apple is apparently doing - they send location, local IP, and nearby wifi mac addresses even when you're not logged in. Similarly Apple is collecting more data types than Google according to the research paper.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#59

Post by tchalla »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

> It's similar to when Apple defended it's 30% store cut by claiming it's an "industry standard"... specifically, an industry standard that Apple established.

Apple established a standard for the Apple app store. There was a lot of complaint about "Apple Tax" and Apple merely pointed out that it wasn't a "Apple Tax". Sure, Apple started it but others which are not even connected to the Apple ecosystem simply followed. They could have not decided to but they did (Re:Table 1) [0]. Microsoft, Samsung, Google and Amazon all have the same 30% tax. Heck, even commission rates for Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo have the same rate (Re : Table 2). I am sure Apple is not forcing them to have those rates.

Somehow, this conversation turns into an "Apple" vs rest conversation. There's no conversation had upon the charges on a digital distribution store. I'd say - let's have that conversation and come up with a number. Currently, the number is decided in a "free market". I would be open to come up to an alternate number. Most arguments against the 30% is that it is too high. Well, every penny that goes out from the developer's pocket is too high. The cost of an iPhone might be too high. Something, being too high is not an argument to not have that rate.

[0] https://www.analysisgroup.com/globalassets/insights/publishi...

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#60

Post by mikestew »

rdw wrote: post #34
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

The 30% cut was considered very good at the time. It was way better than the 50-90% cut that traditional publishers would take. A sibling comment notes that Steam charged 30% at the time (though some had better deals) but it's worth noting that Steam was not an open platform that anyone could publish on. Much like for consoles, to put a game on Steam you had to have a preexisting relationship with Valve, or try to de…

The 30% cut was considered very good at the time.

No, it wasn't. I'm not going to dig up links, but one could pop a web site storefront and Fastspring for payment processing (as one example of a company I used) for less than 10% (Fastspring would take something like 6-7%, IIRC). Discovery has always sucked on Apple's store, so no value-add there. In fact, I'd argue that the only value-add one gets out of Apple's store is access to their closed garden.

And "50-90%"? Is that in reference to putting software in physical boxes and on CompUSA shelves? Because no mobile publisher charged 90% before Apple's store came along.

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