• Google reportedly made it difficult for smartphone users to find privac

    From cricket@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 30 07:35:39 2021
    XPost: alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.privacy, comp.mobile.android
    XPost: alt.crime

    Unredacted documents in Arizona’s lawsuit against Google show
    that company executives and engineers were aware that the search
    giant had made it hard for smartphone users to keep location
    information private, Insider reported.

    The documents suggest that Google collected location data even
    after users had turned off location sharing, and made privacy
    settings difficult for users to find. Insider also reports that
    the documents show Google pressured phone manufacturers into
    keeping privacy settings hidden, because the settings were
    popular with users.

    Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit against
    Google last May, alleging the company illegally tracked Android
    users’ location without their consent, even if users had
    disabled location tracking features. The lawsuit suggested
    Google kept location tracking running in the background for some
    features, and only stopped the practice when users disabled
    system-level tracking.

    The unredacted documents show one Google employee asked if there
    was “no way to give a third party app your location and not
    Google?” adding that it didn’t sound like something the company
    would want revealed to the media, according to Insider.

    Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in an email to The Verge
    that Brnovich “and our competitors driving this lawsuit have
    gone out of their way to mischaracterize our services. We have
    always built privacy features into our products and provided
    robust controls for location data. We look forward to setting
    the record straight."

    https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/29/22460070/google-difficult- android-privacy-settings-arizona

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  • From Gronk@21:1/5 to cricket on Sun May 30 08:31:11 2021
    XPost: alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.privacy, alt.crime

    cricket wrote:
    Unredacted documents in Arizona’s lawsuit against Google show
    that company executives and engineers were aware that the search
    giant had made it hard for smartphone users to keep location
    information private, Insider reported.

    It's only a surprise to these gormless Apple crybabies that the big
    companies (including Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon, Facebook, you name
    it) spy on us and make it hard for us to not be spied upon.

    This clueless "cricket" posted the same thing many times in the Android newsgroup under the nym of "Alan Baker" (well after the Android newsgroup discussed the matter separately in a manner that was constructive).

    We remove the Google Account if we want.
    We fake our GPS location if we want.
    We set our defaults to non Google apps if we want.
    We set our default browser to any browser we want.
    We set our default voice assistant to anyone we want.
    We add automation and quick shortcuts to reset any setting we want.
    We use any app store we want to get our apps from.
    and so on.

    We're constructive. Not destructive.
    We know the big companies spy on us and we deal with it appropriately.

    If you drop low enough to bother to respond to this "cricket" (aka Alan
    Baker) please remove the Android newsgroup which has already discussed this
    in a constructive manner (as in how to set the phone up properly) without
    even mentioning the iPhone because the Android newsgroup isn't a crybaby newsgroup.

    We just set up our phone to do what we want.
    You can't do that on an iPhone (and don't even try to claim you can).

    His rant is mostly for the clueless iPhone users & not Android users.

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  • From Anonymous Remailer (austria)@21:1/5 to cricket on Mon May 31 05:38:57 2021
    XPost: alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.privacy, comp.mobile.android
    XPost: alt.crime

    In article <3db944589722f1477288039607d3c971@dizum.com>
    "cricket" <invalid@dont-email.me> wrote:

    Unredacted documents in Arizona’s lawsuit against Google show
    that company executives and engineers were aware that the search
    giant had made it hard for smartphone users to keep location
    information private, Insider reported.

    The documents suggest that Google collected location data even
    after users had turned off location sharing, and made privacy
    settings difficult for users to find. Insider also reports that
    the documents show Google pressured phone manufacturers into
    keeping privacy settings hidden, because the settings were
    popular with users.

    Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit against
    Google last May, alleging the company illegally tracked Android
    users’ location without their consent, even if users had
    disabled location tracking features. The lawsuit suggested
    Google kept location tracking running in the background for some
    features, and only stopped the practice when users disabled
    system-level tracking.

    The unredacted documents show one Google employee asked if there
    was “no way to give a third party app your location and not
    Google?” adding that it didn’t sound like something the company
    would want revealed to the media, according to Insider.

    Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in an email to The Verge
    that Brnovich “and our competitors driving this lawsuit have
    gone out of their way to mischaracterize our services. We have
    always built privacy features into our products and provided
    robust controls for location data. We look forward to setting
    the record straight."

    https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/29/22460070/google-difficult- android-privacy-settings-arizona

    We are all whores for free stuff.

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From paul@21:1/5 to All on Mon May 31 15:40:08 2021
    XPost: alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.privacy

    Anonymous Remailer (austria) wrote on 31.05.2021 03:38
    We are all whores for free stuff.

    Take a look at what recently unredacted documents show for location privacy https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/05/30/court-documents-show-google-intentionally-hid-privacy-controls/

    This applies to both iOS & Android (using Google Maps).

    Specifically page 14 of this PDF which discussed specifically that
    Google tracking on iOS/Android was so good that people would be "surprised" (which, to Google, was _not_ a good thing at all!) at how good it was! https://www.azag.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/Berlin_Exhibit_69.pdf

    Example 1:
    Person lives in a shared house. Has opted his phone out of Google location
    (phone is anonymous). Opens Google Maps. Suddenly Google maps has
    house-level accurate location. User is left wondering: How does Google know
    my location? I thought I said no location tracking?

    Example 2:
    iOS user in same shared house. Goes to google.com and says "I don't want
    google.com to use my location" a few days before. But yet, we _do_ know
    exactly their location and we _can_ use it. User is left wondering: What?
    I thought I told Google it was not allowed to use my location?

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