16 December 2013

Electronic Frontier Foundation: “Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claiming Its Release Was Accidental”

In the mean time, we’re not sure what to say to Android users. If app privacy is especially important to you — if, for instance, you want to be able to install an app like Shazam or Skype or Brightest Flashlight without giving it permission to know your location — we would have to advise you not to accept the update to 4.4.2. But this is also a catastrophic situation, because the update to Android 4.4.2 contains fixes to security and denial-of-service bugs. So, for the time being, users will need to chose between either privacy or security on the Android devices, but not both.

Google, the right thing to do here is obvious.

Peter Eckersley

While one could understand collecting data on Android to better target ads and improve their own services, there’s no reason whatsoever for third-party apps to be allowed the same access to sensitive user information. Yet another reason to dislike Android.

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