Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

Buying a device that only runs OEN Android is ridiculous for this exact reason.

We need to decouple phone hardware from phone software, as we did with computers.

Because the link is down:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250506145643/https://smex.org/...

The article leaves out quite a lot about what AppCloud is, but it's essentially how Samsung monetizes their non-flagship device users and can do things like insert installation advertisements into the notification tray, and silently install apps.

Personally, if I found this on my device it'd be the final straw to grit my teeth and finally get a personal apple device.

Would sufficient people change purchase decisions in ways which they could recognise this as a root cause?

The "unremovable" part is inaccurate. While you can't completely remove it because it resides on the system partition, you most probably can still disable it with an adb command:

    adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.package.name

This command is very powerful as it works for any app, even those that have "disable" greyed out in the settings. I disabled the Galaxy Store on my S9 this way for example.

I suspect a strong link between mass surveillance (by corporations for advertising or by states for intelligence purposes) and the very recent targeting of the senior Iranian nuclear scientist and military officers at their homes in Iran.

Wherever you are from or whatever side of the conflict you are on, I think we can all agree that it’s never been easier to infer so much about a person from “semi-public” sources such as companies selling customer data and built-in apps that spy on their users and call home. It allows intelligence agencies to outsource intelligence gathering to the market, which is probably cheaper and a lot more convenient than traditional methods.

“Privacy is a human right” landed on deaf ears but hopefully politicians will soon realise that it’s a matter of national security too.