Newly unredacted documents in a lawsuit against Google reveal that the company’s own executives and engineers knew just how difficult the company had made it for smartphone users to keep their location data private.
Google continued collecting location data even when users turned off various location-sharing settings, made popular privacy settings harder to find, and even pressured LG and other phone makers into hiding settings precisely because users liked them, according to the documents.
The cold and harsh truth is that these companies can pretty much get away with anything. In fact, hordes of people will crawl out of the woodwork to defend this kind of behaviour, all in the name of greed and wealth that they themselves never see anything of anyway, since it disappears into the pockets of a small number of billionaires, trickling down only as far as the drip after the last shake makes it to their shoe.
I watched a Youtube on superyachts the other day. They’re nice and I wouldn’t say no to one but a lot of the people interviewed on camera seemed like total jerks to me. It’s easy to judge. Loads of money would probably make anyone go funny in the head. What gets me isn’t so much that but the total squeeze they and their ilk put on everyone else. Then there’s the influence their greed and sharp practice has on some peoples minds and the way it becomes normalised. That’s the worst of it.
This keeps coming up every couple of years, but nothing ever really changes, nor do I expect it to change this time.
http://www.osnews.com/story/30096/android-collects-locations-when-location-services-are-disabled/
http://www.osnews.com/story/129329/new-study-google-manipulates-users-into-constant-tracking/
Corporate abuse like this makes me want to avoid google, and on the other side we’ve got apple abusing it’s power too, only different types of abuse. It’s loose-loose either way 🙁
I opted for a micro-g build of lineageos to avoid google’s spyware. I was happy with it except my job uses watchguard VPN, who’s idiot developers decided to hard-code authentication around google play services. As much as I pleaded my case, I lost that battle and was required to use a google spy phone for work. This is why the market is broken, it’s at best the illusion of choice, but not real choice. These non-competitive market conditions are a major source of grief for me. Boybotting these companies is a struggle in futility for myself. How can I expect anyone else to do it? Argh!
Curious why you would NEED to VPN into work on your phone? Too much garbage out there on phones I wouldn’t trust for work access. I barely like checking corp email on them. :p
But I 100% agree. At this point we should be able to be running some form of Linux phone with sandboxing of Android apps and dedicated control methods of being able to keep our data to ourselves. Sandboxing method should be able to send a fake / real GPS location for example on a per app basis. Like if I really need to use a GPS / Nav app, I should be able to push a button and have it actually track me. But otherwise it doesn’t need to constantly be on.
Ha, a VPN capability for GPS…
leech,
Actually the VPN runs on the computer and the phone is used for two factor authentication (ie something you have + something you know). That in itself isn’t bad, but making it depend on google play services was downright stupid. Not only does it suck for forcing me to run google services on my device, but because it gives google more access to the authentication process that it shouldn’t have. On top of that all our failure modes increased from being just the local VPN itself to including watchguard’s servers PLUS google’s servers. They’re capitalizing on our industries infatuation with “the cloud” and paying monthly service fees for the privilege. The irony is that the VPN itself isn’t running in the cloud, it’s running locally like it always has only now it’s designed to act as a slave with a 3rd parties on the internet controlling access.
When it comes to their infrastructure, my position is “whatever man”, but it really pisses me off that they’ve overruled my right to choose my own devices and firmware for my phone! I bet google loves when this kind of forced lock in happens though.
I agree with you about the sandboxing. Alas part of the problem stems from corporations not being motivated to protect consumer interests. I remember many years ago some google employees released an unofficial build of android that had more privacy features like the ones you describe. It got pulled immediately once google executives found out about it though. That’s the problem, our technology is mostly being designed by corporations to promote their own selfish interests. And it’s not helped that we have to contend with a very strong duopoly where both corporations want us to sacrifice the privilege of privacy and control.
I recommend taking a look at OSMAnd for offline GPS. It’s open source and uses public street map data. It works fine on lineage without any google services (although you loose text to speech in that case). As always you’ve got to be very careful that google isn’t sneaking a peak at your location in the background.
For the record (this is getting a bit afield from the topic of the article): The recommendation for text-to-speech on recent versions of LineageOS seems to be Flite (https://android.stackexchange.com/a/213809). I’ve been satisfied with it for use with OsmAnd.
Matt McCutchen,
That’s awesome!
I installed the application and the demo works but so far I haven’t gotten OSMAnd to work with it, it says TTS engine failure when I select it. The prerecorded voices work like they always have. I’ll play around with it some more. I see a new version of microg+lineage for my phone came out in may, so that’s worth trying.
I’m unclear on whether this alternative TTS engine depends on google services being there at the OS level to invoke it? Do you use lineage with or without google services installed?
Thanks for mentioning it, I was not aware about it.
As far as I recall, Flite worked out of the box on my Pixel 3a running LineageOS 17.1 without any Google proprietary components or microG installed. If you have either of those installed, it’s conceivable that they could be interfering in some way with the selection of the TTS provider; be sure to check the configuration on the text-to-speech page of the Settings app. I’d be happy to help you troubleshoot your configuration further, but not in this comment section; you can email me at [email protected] or start a thread in some appropriate public forum and email me the link.
The main problem is not Google. Most people just don’t care. That is the main problem.
Well as reported enough people cared to make it a problem for Google. This article is an interesting illustration of literacy barrier. You can always exert desired behaviour from majority of customers if you make opting out of it cognitively hard enough. This is the same mechanism as with various licenses which are worded in a language impossible to decipher for non lawyers. Technically it’s still English practically it’s an opaque dialect.
I wish literacy barrier would get a proper (and testable) legal definition so that its exploitation at expense of a customer could be banned. I think at least european parlament could try to tackle this subject.
@dsmogor
In the UK case law already exists to nullify contracts which are opaque or difficult to understand. I can’t remember how much is statute or how much is case law. T&C’s which attempt to overwrite rights in law are null and void. Most consumers would complain to Trading Standards who can take action. I have no idea what the EU law is on this but GDPR contains similar law around consent. This may be used as a starting point for discussion if all else fails.
The Plain English Campaign has various guides on the use of language, accreditation, and rewriting and proofreading services.
good to know, it’s been a loophole for too long.
Over the years I’ve read plenty of British going “OMG EULA” because they swallow the first thing they read on the internet which by sheer weight of numbers is usually some American. I’m one of those people who pays attention to what my rights actually are instead of what a random sitting in the peanut gallery is trying to tell me.
From my personal experience unfortunately most people just don’t care enough to make a difference. Maybe some day but not today or in the past decade. It’s like it is an accepted norm now and if you try to speak against it you are at best a weirdo.
I tend to agree and the past decade has seen a massive undermining of people standing up for their rights. Whether it’s a decade of austerity policies or a relentless right wing media there’s been a disconnect in the UK. I’m not sure. Perhaps complacency or hope it won’t effect them so they bury their heads in the sand. Perhaps the right wing are just better at gerrymandering and abusing the system. Throw in so much bad news and stress and people can begin to feel it’s hopeless or get compassion fatigue. It’s never one thing but a lot of things over a period of time. Perhaps like the pandemic people have been pushed down so hard the thought of anything approaching normality begins to get to them.
Oh, I’d say they do care if they were using the settings before Google hid them. The real problem is, people have been trained to think someone else will do something. Case in point: comments here are already talking about regulation, not asking how they can help. As long as this SEP field continues to surround the issue, it will forever remain as it is.
If i write on the left and right side, pros and cons, regarding what state laws and state privacy agencies have done or didn’t do in the past decade. It’s a lost war. They are just not competent enough to deal with it.
There were other models.
Blackberry used to have it’s own fee they used to charge carriers for the services they provided. I forget how much it was, but it was a few bucks off your mobile bill would go to BB for the use of their network/services. To an extent, I prefer the simplicity of this model. If given the choice, I’d pay a buck of two a month in addition to my mobile bill.
Blackberry lost for a wide array of reasons, but the end results is that ‘free’ Android won and it is ad supported. That’s where they get their money to pay for services and profits.
It would be interesting to see if an Android phone with paid services like that could actually work. But no one I know is working on that business model with the high quality we expect from Google’s apps.
A couple of years back i remember on how there was no mobile data icon in the drop down list anymore, to quickly enable or disable mobile data. Unless you customized your Android phone you had to go in some weird settings to enable or disable it.
Huh? I have the latest Android build. And the mobile data switch is right there on the drop down menu.
Airplane mode is a requirement by the FCC.
That was on Samsung Galaxy S7. They after reintroduced the mobile data icon in quick panel by default. Likely due to pressure.
It’s also quite possible that Google doesn’t allow manufacturers to offer alternative services outside the EU. In 2018 there was an EC ruling against Google for doing just that. As far as I’m aware the ruling only applies to devices sold in the EU, so in other parts of the world it may not be contractually feasible to try the business model you describe.
https://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cfm?proc_code=1_40099
The one obvious exception is Huawei. It would be interesting to compare how a lack of Google Services has affected their phone sales in different regions over the last couple of years.
Funny you should mention that, Android did have crazy services when it launched in a lot of places. Carriers installed their own app stores, and various terrible services radio, maps, etc. They were awful crapware. Blackberry’s services were better, than those, but obviously not really worth it No carrier control of devices, nor any bundled required services. Thats not the future I want.