31 ms·

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

816 points by gormandizer 6y ago

papaf 6y ago
Smartphones are personal tracking devices that also allow you to browse the web and make phone calls.
- swiley 6y ago
  I've always thought of them as "endpoints for deploying cooperate software into your life" but this is also a pretty good description.
  - amelius 6y ago
    The iPhone is basically a vending machine for entertainment, owned by Apple and paid for by you.
    - tehjoker 6y ago
      Often it is a slot machine as well.
davidkellis 6y ago
What are the best alternatives to iOS and Android? Is it reasonable to consider the hardware itself "safe", given that the software tracks and calls home about every single thing it does? What are the alternatives?
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  There are no practical alternatives. If you're serious enough to use impractical solutions, you probably want a non-google Android distro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distrib...
- swebs 6y ago
  Manjaro Phosh edition on the Pinephone is pretty good these days. There's still a lot of work to be done, but it works just fine as a phone.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    None of the distributions on the PinePhone work well for all the things that people use that little computer in their pocket (which is no longer just a phone) for. For maps, for instance, all of the PinePhone's choices are little more than lightweight tech demos compared to, say, OSMAnd on Android. There is no official Signal client, no powerful browser beyond the clunky Desktop-Firefox-for-Postmarket-OS hack, etc. It is unlikely that "all the work that would need to be done" to make the PinePhone as useful as an Android phone (even with pure libre software) will even get done. The problem is that the PinePhone is just too underpowered in CPU and RAM, comparable to devices from many years ago. Plus, the PinePhone dev community just doesn’t appear to be large and motivated enough to cover all the bases of e.g. battery optimization that the corporate mobile developers have done.
    - swebs 6y ago
      Well it can make calls, transfer data over cellular networks, and access a web browser. For some people, that's all they need. For maps, I use Nextcloud Maps through Firefox. You can also use Google Maps that way or whatever OSM provider. It comes with a Telegram client and Matrix client. >no powerful browser beyond the clunky Desktop-Firefox-for-Postmarket-OS hack, etc. I don't really know what you mean by this. It's the exact same Firefox that's in desktop Linux. You can install all the add-ons and such. Do note that Manjaro is not PostmarketOS. The biggest problems are the weak CPU as you've mentioned, and the fact that the entire OS is in a very alpha (or even pre-alpha) state right now.
      - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
        > For some people, that's all they need. History tells us that when you have a device that does a few things that only for a tiny minority of people – within already a tiny minority of nerds – are "all that they need", and the dev community is so small, there is no future to the device. For someone who was around in the OpenMoko and Nokia N900 days, it is hard not to see the PinePhone as a stillborn device, which will never progress beyond "pre-alpha" state. A year after I got my PinePhone, it remains just as disappointing an experience as in the beginning. > You can also use Google Maps that way or whatever OSM provider. Browsing Google Maps is a joke on the PinePhone's weak processor. And again, OSM on the PinePhone is vastly inferior to the OSM choices on Android. Merely showing OSM tiles does not a good map app make. > It's the exact same Firefox that's in desktop Linux And that is the problem. Desktop Firefox was never designed to work at those screen dimensions. Many features of the Firefox UI do not actually work on the PinePhone. (They might possibly work if you dock the PinePhone with a monitor and mouse – I haven’t checked – but they don’t work on the PinePhone as a phone.)
- fapjacks 6y ago
  As mentioned in sibling comment, there are no alternative, but I use microG, which is an open source Google Play Services (the core vehicle of most of this fuckery) shim that allows you to use apps that require Google Play Services (like Uber or Tinder or whatever) without actually having to install any binary blobs from Google. The future is so stupid.
- FearlessNebula 6y ago
  The hardware itself is insecure in 99% of modern phones because the modem has its own tiny CPU with access to the main CPU and memory. I have no evidence that anyone does use this to collect your data, but somebody totally could. Desktop processors have something similar called the Intel Management Engine or AMD Ryzen has the PSP
- npteljes 6y ago
  There's /e/ OS for one. Debatable how far you get from the Google ecosystem, since it's an AOSP fork, but I think it's a fine middle ground of functionality and practical privacy.
- fsflover 6y ago
  Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5.
- niutech 6y ago
  Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Mobile, Sailfish OS, Nemo Mobile, postmarketOS. I use UT as my main smartphone OS and it does everything I need.
jeffbee 6y ago
A lot of this reveals the way that Google itself perceives Android devices, and also ChromeOS devices to a lesser extent, to be inside their infrastructure. Years ago Google SRE wanted to extend observability beyond their edge so that there could be an SRE team responsible for the performance of first-party mobile applications. So, there's an SRE team at Google with a dashboard that shows them Google search latency from Google app v42 and v43 which is deployed to 1% of clients. This is why there is so much telemetry. Another big thing about Android is anti-abuse, keeping people from running ad click fraud in apps running on emulators. That is the whole DroidGuard thing that the paper mentions and doesn't explore further. It is a device-specific virtual machine and bytecode for the virtual machine which is intended to authenticate it as a real device, not an emulator. Anyway check out this slide deck for how Google SRE views mobile as being in their world: https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/conference/protected-files/srecon18emea_slides_littley.pdf https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/conference/protec... PS that team is called MISRE, pronounced "misery" and some of the founders of that team migrated from "SAD SRE" make of that what you will.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  > A lot of this reveals the way that Google itself perceives Android devices, and also ChromeOS devices to a lesser extent, to be inside their infrastructure. This quote should be more than enough to justify legally separating Google from ownership of both platforms. It is a similar problem we're seeing Tesla now extend to it's cars. Regardless of who legally owns the device, the company's employees feel entitled to data from it and de facto ownership of it. In most cases collecting data that the actual owner of the device is unable to see or utilize themselves.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Not all of it is inaccessible to users. CPU profiles of ChromeOS, for example, are collected on user devices, aggregated, and checked into the public source code repos where anyone can use them, usually for optimizing a chromium build but any purpose you can think of.
- Google234 6y ago
metalliqaz 6y ago
How to fully disable Google location tracking on your smartphone: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/08/how-to-fully-disable-google-location-tracking-on-your-smartphone/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/08/how-to-fully-disabl... How to disable personalized ads on Android: https://www.androidguys.com/tips-tools/how-to-disable-personalized-ads-on-android/ https://www.androidguys.com/tips-tools/how-to-disable-person...
- cma 6y ago
  > Note that if you clear your cache, you will lose your opt-out setting.” Tap OK to continue and implement the change. Which cache is that talking about, the browser, or some system level thing? Doesn't clearing your cache break some of their fingerprinting and tracking stuff (timing side channels, etc.)? Seems kind of egregious to have clearing that simultaneously opt you back in.
- aboringusername 6y ago
  PSA: This does NOT stop Google tracking your smartphones location. If you think taking these steps means Google's blissfully unaware of where your smartphone is located is denying themselves reality, there are many, many ways to track where a handset is at any given moment (IP address, cellular tower location, with 5G it can be even more precise). I'd be shocked if after turning off all the settings on my phone it was impossible to track its location via some capability somewhere.
qwertox 6y ago
Last week my Pixel started to display an overlay with closed captions of the audio flowing through the device. It listens in on any audio and transcribes it. Probably handy for podcasts, but other things are just scary. Maybe it's OK if Google does it, I don't really know. I dislike it, it concerns me. The device would have a transcription of audio conversations I have through apps like WhatsApp. Or it could do something useful like transcribe podcasts and hand the transcription over to the owners, so that they can publish it along with their podcasts, without Google needing to dedicate their servers to it. But if companies like Xiaomi get this feature for free on Android 15 or 16, I know what they will use this tech for. I know what Facebook would use this tech for, and I wouldn't be surprised if they finally start to sell a cheap but powerful Android device. With offline transcription the "your device is recording me" will get so much harder to detect, as no audio will get streamed. It will become so easy to listen for keywords like "lawnmower" and count their occurrences or their proximity to phrases like "need to buy", or "is pregnant" and stuff like that. I don't want my devices to do this.
- esrauch 6y ago
  The live transcription behavior is enabled by a button at the bottom of the volume control toggle. If it transcribes even if that button is off that seems a lot more concerning. I don't think transcribing on device and then uploading would make any sense: for something like podcasts they could just do serverside transcription (they already do for youtube videos at least).
  - Zhenya 6y ago
    1) press volume down 2) you should see the volume dialog with a box with squiggly lines in it at the bottom of the volume slider 3) press that to turn it off
    - qwertox 6y ago
      Thanks to both of you.
      - 6y ago
teraflop 6y ago
"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.
- swiley 6y ago
  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.)
  - wmichelin 6y ago
    Sending telemetry _poorly_ can get expensive. A good client can aggregate, even compress locally, and publish telemetry in batches. Let's not rule out telemetry entirely because of bad implementations. I'd say the moral of the story here is that Microsoft and HP just write shitty software.
- kllrnohj 6y ago
  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.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - threeseed 6y ago
    Please provide evidence of this because Apple's official documentation says otherwise: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033 They do send nearly WiFi hotspots for crowd sourcing purposes but it is never in conjunction with your local IP address (which is an identifying piece of information).
hindsightbias 6y ago
You are the Product. It’s always interesting how Android is given the benefit of the doubt on intent and that never happens with iOS.
troysk 6y ago
There is a typo in the title. It should be Google and not Goolgle.
williesleg 6y ago
It's all about the data. Even here. They track who posts what, when, and from where.
yuhong 6y ago
I wrote about CompatTelRunner because of the CPU time it consumes, which even MS employees like Billy O'Neal complain about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Desktop_Analytics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Desktop_Analytics
bilal4hmed 6y ago
Seems like the answer is to use just iOS and apple products if you care about privacy.
danielrhodes 6y ago
Data collection is what companies do when they have no empathy. It's like an ivory tower effect where you don't interact with customers day to day or don't know what they want, so you try to use data to fill in the (large) gap. I could come up with countless examples of amazing products where nobody was using data to justify their decisions.
- ConceptJunkie 6y ago
  That's because the user of the service or device is not the customer.
  - danielrhodes 6y ago
    If you're saying they are the product, that's a very old trope and easily falsified. For example, advertisers come to Facebook because, and only because, users are there. If users stopped liking Facebook, they wouldn't be there anymore. If they aren't there anymore, advertisers don't want to be there either. Thus, Facebook is incentivized to keep users happy - they are the most important people to Facebook. From what I've heard, Facebook struggles to get engineers to work on ads. If advertisers were the true customers, I imagine most engineers would be more gung-ho to work on ads because that would align more closely with career success at the company. The above doesn't justify unrestrained tracking of user activity - but let's not pretend companies get to where they are because they create a first-class space for advertisers. They get to where they are because they, at least at one point, created a great product for their customers.
jariel 6y ago
Both Google and Apple forbid health agencies around the world wanting to install apps to store similar data for the purposes of pandemic data and suppression - which is understandable that many governments would use it for all sorts of nefarious reasons, but it's also rather hypocritical that they can infer that 'we can use it for whatever because quality. And advertising'.
PieUser 6y ago
and microsoft probably collects 200X from windows...
laurensr 6y ago
Could an admin please adjust the typo in the title? Goolgle -> Google
- judge2020 6y ago
  The OP can also edit the title for a period of time after submission.
mankyd 6y ago
Not mentioned in the headline: When the user is _not_ logged in, iOS collects "location" whereas Android does not. I am actually a little surprised that iOS would gather this information. What use would it serve?
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  It's possible this is referring to this feature: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/apple-explains-mysterious-iphone-11-location-requests/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/apple-explains-mysteriou... Generally speaking, Apple is drastically better about location services privacy. For instance, Apple Maps does not tie any location data nor direction requests to your Apple ID, and regularly rotates identifiers for devices used by the service: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212039 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212039
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    That link is returning "429 Too Many Requests." What feature is it you're referring to?
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      There's an Ultra Wideband radio in the iPhone 11 and newer that isn't legal to use in all countries. Apple uses a location request sometimes just to determine if the device can legally run that radio or not.
      - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
        Thanks!
      - fapjacks 6y ago
        It's nice of you to accept Apple's calling it "radio" but UWB is radar technology. Newer iPhones have radar built into them to make their location tracking more precise. Most people don't understand (or can't understand) the details, which is why the semantic load of calling UWB "radar" instead of "radio" is important for conveying its intended purpose.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
" 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 doing this because phones made it normal. It's wrong in both cases. 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.
- AlexandrB 6y ago
  This may be pedantic, but Steam was collecting its 30% long before the App Store opened. Thought maybe that was inspired by Apple's cut of music revenues in the iTunes Store.
  - astrange 6y ago
    Older app stores and especially physical retail collected a lot more than 30%.
  - adamsvystun 6y ago
    And just to be complete, there is little preventing other people from creating their own Steam (many do) or not using Steam at all (developers can publish their apps directly to users). This is not the case with the App store.
  - grishka 6y ago
    You pay 30% for all the hosting and listing and payment processing. But then you aren't required to use Steam to distribute your game — you could as well set up your own website. There's nothing preventing you. There's no predatory code signing on desktop OSes. On the other hand, you can't sideload apps onto iOS devices. You HAVE to go through Apple. You either publish on the app store, or you don't have an iOS app. That's different. That's very different. That's antitrust-can't-happen-sooner different.
aboringusername 6y ago
I mean at this point it's obvious if you're using a digital device data is going to be collected, that's part of society and living in the 21st century; could be your toothbrush, fridge, washing machine, car...All these devices generate data that is going to be collected. It's also changing how crime is investigated; Google can be asked for a list of smartphones in an area at a given time, can be used to collect evidence or information (were you in this building on this floor at this time?). Carrying a smartphone can implicate you (or not) and you can be photographed by anyone at any moment regardless of your "rights". I think people need to understand you are responsible for what you do on a computer; your clicks, searches, taps, installed app list, and basically everything is being recorded regardless of consent (which appears to be an illusion these days). This is neither shocking nor unexpected. Humans generate data, data is going to be collected and used. That's not going to change any time soon. Some thought Google would introduce a similar privacy feature to Apple's tracking consent but I lol'd at anyone who believed that.
- grawprog 6y ago
  >I think people need to understand you are responsible for what you do on a computer; your clicks, searches, taps, installed app list, and basically everything is being recorded regardless of consent (which appears to be an illusion these days). While I agree with this in principle, I've never really understood why we forgive poor user behaviour when it comes to computers when we don't do the same with basically any other tool humans regularly use, despite the negative consequences being comparable, I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to just quietly accept 'tracking's just the way it is, deal with it.' That doesn't come down to poor user behaviour in that case, it comes down to malicious behaviour by device manufacturers and software developers in the name of profit. It's all well and good to expect users to take steps to deal with that behaviour, but it shouldn't just be accepted that, 'that's just the way it is.' And companies should be held accountable for at least the deceit that surrounds it. Just being honest and open about it all would be a start. At least then you could make the excuse 'oh well the user should have tried harder to not be tracked.' Because they have a fair chance of knowing where and how they're being tracked. This current system of deceit and bullshit is the problem.
- 6y ago
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
As users, we are assured that telemetry is only for the purpose of "improving products and services", "improving user experience", etc. If one company is collecting 20x as much as another, all else being equal, one would expect that this would be reflected in the quality of the product/service/experience. Of course, Google's service is to advertisers, first and foremost. Users generally do not pay for what they receive from Google. Perhaps Google's paying customers, advertisers, are the ones seeing the improvement in the quality of service as a direct or indirect result of telemetry.
- darkwizard42 6y ago
  I don't think this is necessarily true. I believe that Google Maps navigation and location accuracy is significantly better on Android than iOS (no claim on 20x...but anectdatally better) Google Maps getting more precise telemetry data is actually so useful in improving the navigation experience in tricky intersections, overlapping roads, or low bandwidth areas where GPS signal and service can be spotty. I can speak from experience that friends with Android phones experience less jumpiness in their GPS location, less errors in navigation, and less of that pesky "You've Arrived" notification triggering when still far away from the destination.
  - andrewzah 6y ago
    Also anecdotally speaking, conversely, I used to use Waze/Google Maps, and nowadays just use Apple Maps. The latter has been more than sufficient in my day to day travels. I can't think of any errors in navigation.
- ProfessorLayton 6y ago
  YMMV, but as much as I like Apple Maps and use it as much as I can, for the more complex/unknown routes I definitely rely more on Google Maps to get it right. I don't know if telemetry is the cause for the better service, but it is noticeably better for me. Separately, I'm also a google customer as I run an Ad campaign for a small business (skilled labor), and the dollars spent on search ads are extremely efficient with an incredible ROI. Even with CACs in the 10s of dollars, with the size of the contracts being signed it typically costs much less than .5% of the total.
dltj 6y ago
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.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  Apple supposedly makes billions every year from ad revenue. Not a core part of their business but still nothing to sneeze at In addition to https://searchads.apple.com https://searchads.apple.com there's ads in the stock and news apps.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
chiefalchemist 6y ago
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-under-surveillance-capitalism-on-the-media https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...
relax88 6y ago
Here I am still waiting for my Purism Librem 5 I ordered in 2019 while google continues to suck up my data. Any day now...
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
This is precisely why I always choose to use the mobile version of a site/app rather than the app if it's available. Safari has great adblocking. Also, the mobile version of a site is typically a superior UX compared to apps because the controls are consistent. It's usually faster, and best of all, it's MUCH easier to block all of the tracking.
jmull 6y ago
I'd be interested to learn more. E.g, to what extent is the data anonymized? I also want to know what the data is used for and how long it is stored for, but I suppose those are very tough questions for an external researcher to test.
mustaflex 6y ago
I went to visit an apartment to rent with a friend. While waiting for the owner my friend was reading the names on the mailbox, and read the "x" out loud said "this person is probably Romanian". I when I was home I had notification if I knew this "x" person. All this time my phone was in my pocket. It is just creepy and I'm going to change my pixel 2 as soon as I can for an Iphone.
mmacvicarprett 6y ago
Why do they need IMEI for? and mac addresses of close networks (besides location). When the user gives consent for PII like IMEI, location, networks mac addresses? I wonder if both companies might be breaching the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA").
- TechBro8615 6y ago
  You'd have to ask Apple, but I'd imagine they would say they use it to improve location services. Access point / MAC address data is really useful in aggregate as a way of augmenting GPS, especially indoors. And of course it's also a great way of seeing who associates with each other, but that's at least somewhat mitigated by most devices broadcasting random MAC addresses until they actually join a network.
grifball 6y ago
I only skimmed the paper, but I think the title extracts and confuses a small part of the paper: "Google collects around 20 times more handset data than Apple" They didn't intend to say that google collects 20x more data than apple in total, which is what the use of the term "devices" kinda leads us to think. The paper seemed to be equally critical of both and this article made it into an attack on google. Idk which device is worse, but this article title is a bit misleading. Why not just quote the paper directly?
nojito 6y ago
Most of the info Apple sends shouldn't be considered telemetry though. The hardware info is used to make sure that blacklisted/stolen devices are rendered inoperable. The other requests are simply due to used apps...it seems the researcher is unclear about many aspects of iOS. i.e. typing a url into Safari kicks off to find links, apps, etc. that will be the logical next step for a "search" He also doesn't understand the difference between Siri the voice assistant and Siri the platform. tldr; Google vacuums everything it can...Apple is the exact opposite.
sloshnmosh 6y ago
Might I suggest Lineage OS. Very little if any data is sent out from my testing.
einpoklum 6y ago
"Google and Apple both collect a lot more telemetry from devices with Android/iOS respectively devices then they should be; with Google outdoing Apple." There, fixed that title for you.
harry8 6y ago
Every week there's a story here on HN that makes me mourn the demise of the Nokia N900. Still the best smartphone ever made by a massive margin. I hope both those things are made obsolete by stories of smartphones that work well and are vastly more trustworthy than Google and Apple. The longer it takes, the harder it gets. Whatsapp/Signal ports are now hard requirements for much of the population. :S
- fsflover 6y ago
  But what about Librem 5 and Pinephone?
  - harry8 6y ago
    yeah, about them. Don't we all want them to go on to succeed as well as the n900? Then better. Want that badly. Or anything else similar. Not yet though, huh?
    - fsflover 6y ago
      > Not yet though, huh? Depends on your needs. Calls, texts, browsing work pretty reliably. Convergence has been demonstrated, too. Your Android banking app forced on you may work or not depending on luck.
nixass 6y ago
Google - if you're explaining you're losing
aasasd 6y ago
I'm waiting for a traffic analysis to turn up that Google gathers location, wifi APs and cell towers even when all possible consent is revoked. Because, with Google's greed, no way I'm believing that they would give that up, and I'm not turning the location service on. Reminder that Google literally provides a location database for US cops, who are getting bulk data on people simply being in some place at some time and doing nothing wrong: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/technology/google-sensorvault-location-tracking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/technology/google-sensorv... Meanwhile other countries want to make Google store that data on their territory when it's about their citizens.
jp0d 6y ago
There is no point defending Apple or Google. Both of them probably collect data. Personally I'd be more comfortable with Apple collecting my data as they don't have an Advertisement based model. They've less incentives to use our data, whereas Google's business is based around that very idea! Apple advocates privacy and has made many features available as part of the IOS to enable very granular level control.
noelniles 6y ago
Just to be clear the actual paper mentions Android exactly zero times.
noelniles 6y ago
Just to be clear the actual paper mentions Android exactly ZERO times.
dalu 6y ago
Google needs to be reined in. They're running wild. Too arrogant, too powerful, too much influence. And actively evil.
hnburnsy 6y ago
From the study[0]... "Several pre-installed system apps make regular network connections that share device identifiers and details ... The Clock app connects to Google Analytics ssl. google-analytics.com/batch." Really, the clock app calls analytics on a regular basis. That is just ridiculous. [0]-https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf
dav43 6y ago
Some anecdotal from the Apple camp. I've switch off every possible toggle on Apple TVs, iPhones MacBooks and all the devices still ping back to Apple HQ with time.apple.com, time-osx.g.aaplimg.com, metrics.icloud.com..... so I take this with a grain of salt. I've logged all DNS - using nextdns - and the number of requests back to HQ is more that it should be.
Causality1 6y ago
It's all the little needling ways that get to me. For example, Google Maps works fine with GPS. However, if you drag the map view so it isn't centered on you and tap the "center" button, you get a pop-up begging you to let Google scan for access points even when your wifi is turned off. Hit no and hit the center button again and it works normally. Fucking why, Google? It's irrelevant to the function I'm trying to use. Not only that but you already have my answer, which is no. Maybe I don't want to be your personal 24/7 wardriver. Maybe I don't want you running my battery down for no reason. Maybe I'm somewhere I'm not allowed to emit 2.4GHz signals and your scanning could get me in trouble with my job or even the law.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
One thing I noticed is that Google does not collect location and nearby MACs by default and Apple does. That's a pretty serious difference IMO. And one I didn't expect. Some skips the device's own MAC but they already know that anyway as they manufactured it.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  By "Some" I meant "Apple". Autocorrect (swiping) with my fat fingers :P
shp0ngle 6y ago
Google makes money by collecting data (and lately, cloud services), Apple makes money by selling hardware and putting huge margin on it. (And lately, cloud services.) So it's all not surprising, really? Different business models lead to different outcomes.
xtat 6y ago
I guess this is interesting but it's comparing trash with garbage
bronlund 6y ago
I think the most important point here is missing. When Google collects data, it's the basis of their whole existence. It is the source of their main stream of income. When Apple does it, I'm sure it helps, but that data is not the reason Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world. And that is why I use iPhone.
estomagordo 6y ago
So they have 20x better informed decisions in their development processes then. Good!
dvhh 6y ago
I would wager that a good share of it would be device vendor related telemetry
antman 6y ago
Well I have a different personal email account and a different google phone account. There used to be more android mail apps that allow logging in directly without using the phone’s credentials but its getting more and more rare. Any Android mail apps suggestionsthat use web login than android are welcome
omar_kha 6y ago
shouldn't be sending any. need a pure Linux phone to deal with Google
sunstone 6y ago
You can turn "location" off on Android just as you can turn "third party cookies" off on the Chrome browser. Google counts on 95% of users not doing that. Neither of these are perfect solutions but they do help a lot for minimal effort. EDIT And this just in, more third party cookies: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/google-testing-its-controversial-new-ad-targeting-tech-millions-browsers-heres
sizzle 6y ago
“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. Second, that the telemetry collection process allows the OS makers to track users’ location based on the IP address that connects and uploads device telemetry to their servers. The researcher said that currently, there are very few, if any, realistic options for users to prevent telemetry collection from their devices.” This is not what I signed up for, makes me want to leave my smartphone at home or in a faraday cage powered off so I’m not being triangulated by cell towers or these ubiquitous telemetry logs.
zibzab 6y ago
Not sure if I agree with the author. For example, the phones send tons of data to Google when first booted. But there is no data on the phone at that point! Then maybe this is not data gathering just bad software??
- niutech 6y ago
  There IS a lot of data even at the very first boot: unique device ID, IP address, MAC address, location, SSID, etc. It can be used to track you later on.
  - zibzab 6y ago
    Thats like 1K data in total
    - niutech 6y ago
      But it's very sensitive data.
boston_clone 6y ago
Approaching this constructively - is it possible that this data is used for verification purposes? E.g. iOS will alert your iCloud account if it detects a new IMEI/phone number? The claim of “20x more data” is a bit suspect as well. 20x the byte-level amount of data? Yes, the math checks out. 20x the data points? Likely not.
JacobSuperslav 6y ago
I got a feeling the only reason here is that Google is a search engine/ad business and Apple isn't.

816 points by gormandizer 6y ago

papaf 6y ago

Smartphones are personal tracking devices that also allow you to browse the web and make phone calls.

swiley 6y ago
I've always thought of them as "endpoints for deploying cooperate software into your life" but this is also a pretty good description.
- amelius 6y ago
  The iPhone is basically a vending machine for entertainment, owned by Apple and paid for by you.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    Often it is a slot machine as well.

davidkellis 6y ago

What are the best alternatives to iOS and Android? Is it reasonable to consider the hardware itself "safe", given that the software tracks and calls home about every single thing it does? What are the alternatives?

metalliqaz 6y ago
There are no practical alternatives. If you're serious enough to use impractical solutions, you probably want a non-google Android distro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distrib...
swebs 6y ago
Manjaro Phosh edition on the Pinephone is pretty good these days. There's still a lot of work to be done, but it works just fine as a phone.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  None of the distributions on the PinePhone work well for all the things that people use that little computer in their pocket (which is no longer just a phone) for. For maps, for instance, all of the PinePhone's choices are little more than lightweight tech demos compared to, say, OSMAnd on Android. There is no official Signal client, no powerful browser beyond the clunky Desktop-Firefox-for-Postmarket-OS hack, etc. It is unlikely that "all the work that would need to be done" to make the PinePhone as useful as an Android phone (even with pure libre software) will even get done. The problem is that the PinePhone is just too underpowered in CPU and RAM, comparable to devices from many years ago. Plus, the PinePhone dev community just doesn’t appear to be large and motivated enough to cover all the bases of e.g. battery optimization that the corporate mobile developers have done.
  - swebs 6y ago
    Well it can make calls, transfer data over cellular networks, and access a web browser. For some people, that's all they need. For maps, I use Nextcloud Maps through Firefox. You can also use Google Maps that way or whatever OSM provider. It comes with a Telegram client and Matrix client. >no powerful browser beyond the clunky Desktop-Firefox-for-Postmarket-OS hack, etc. I don't really know what you mean by this. It's the exact same Firefox that's in desktop Linux. You can install all the add-ons and such. Do note that Manjaro is not PostmarketOS. The biggest problems are the weak CPU as you've mentioned, and the fact that the entire OS is in a very alpha (or even pre-alpha) state right now.
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      > For some people, that's all they need. History tells us that when you have a device that does a few things that only for a tiny minority of people – within already a tiny minority of nerds – are "all that they need", and the dev community is so small, there is no future to the device. For someone who was around in the OpenMoko and Nokia N900 days, it is hard not to see the PinePhone as a stillborn device, which will never progress beyond "pre-alpha" state. A year after I got my PinePhone, it remains just as disappointing an experience as in the beginning. > You can also use Google Maps that way or whatever OSM provider. Browsing Google Maps is a joke on the PinePhone's weak processor. And again, OSM on the PinePhone is vastly inferior to the OSM choices on Android. Merely showing OSM tiles does not a good map app make. > It's the exact same Firefox that's in desktop Linux And that is the problem. Desktop Firefox was never designed to work at those screen dimensions. Many features of the Firefox UI do not actually work on the PinePhone. (They might possibly work if you dock the PinePhone with a monitor and mouse – I haven’t checked – but they don’t work on the PinePhone as a phone.)
fapjacks 6y ago
As mentioned in sibling comment, there are no alternative, but I use microG, which is an open source Google Play Services (the core vehicle of most of this fuckery) shim that allows you to use apps that require Google Play Services (like Uber or Tinder or whatever) without actually having to install any binary blobs from Google. The future is so stupid.
FearlessNebula 6y ago
The hardware itself is insecure in 99% of modern phones because the modem has its own tiny CPU with access to the main CPU and memory. I have no evidence that anyone does use this to collect your data, but somebody totally could. Desktop processors have something similar called the Intel Management Engine or AMD Ryzen has the PSP
npteljes 6y ago
There's /e/ OS for one. Debatable how far you get from the Google ecosystem, since it's an AOSP fork, but I think it's a fine middle ground of functionality and practical privacy.
fsflover 6y ago
Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5.
niutech 6y ago
Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Mobile, Sailfish OS, Nemo Mobile, postmarketOS. I use UT as my main smartphone OS and it does everything I need.

jeffbee 6y ago

A lot of this reveals the way that Google itself perceives Android devices, and also ChromeOS devices to a lesser extent, to be inside their infrastructure. Years ago Google SRE wanted to extend observability beyond their edge so that there could be an SRE team responsible for the performance of first-party mobile applications. So, there's an SRE team at Google with a dashboard that shows them Google search latency from Google app v42 and v43 which is deployed to 1% of clients. This is why there is so much telemetry. Another big thing about Android is anti-abuse, keeping people from running ad click fraud in apps running on emulators. That is the whole DroidGuard thing that the paper mentions and doesn't explore further. It is a device-specific virtual machine and bytecode for the virtual machine which is intended to authenticate it as a real device, not an emulator. Anyway check out this slide deck for how Google SRE views mobile as being in their world: https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/conference/protected-files/srecon18emea_slides_littley.pdf https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/conference/protec... PS that team is called MISRE, pronounced "misery" and some of the founders of that team migrated from "SAD SRE" make of that what you will.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
> A lot of this reveals the way that Google itself perceives Android devices, and also ChromeOS devices to a lesser extent, to be inside their infrastructure. This quote should be more than enough to justify legally separating Google from ownership of both platforms. It is a similar problem we're seeing Tesla now extend to it's cars. Regardless of who legally owns the device, the company's employees feel entitled to data from it and de facto ownership of it. In most cases collecting data that the actual owner of the device is unable to see or utilize themselves.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Not all of it is inaccessible to users. CPU profiles of ChromeOS, for example, are collected on user devices, aggregated, and checked into the public source code repos where anyone can use them, usually for optimizing a chromium build but any purpose you can think of.
Google234 6y ago

metalliqaz 6y ago

How to fully disable Google location tracking on your smartphone: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/08/how-to-fully-disable-google-location-tracking-on-your-smartphone/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/08/how-to-fully-disabl... How to disable personalized ads on Android: https://www.androidguys.com/tips-tools/how-to-disable-personalized-ads-on-android/ https://www.androidguys.com/tips-tools/how-to-disable-person...

cma 6y ago
> Note that if you clear your cache, you will lose your opt-out setting.” Tap OK to continue and implement the change. Which cache is that talking about, the browser, or some system level thing? Doesn't clearing your cache break some of their fingerprinting and tracking stuff (timing side channels, etc.)? Seems kind of egregious to have clearing that simultaneously opt you back in.
aboringusername 6y ago
PSA: This does NOT stop Google tracking your smartphones location. If you think taking these steps means Google's blissfully unaware of where your smartphone is located is denying themselves reality, there are many, many ways to track where a handset is at any given moment (IP address, cellular tower location, with 5G it can be even more precise). I'd be shocked if after turning off all the settings on my phone it was impossible to track its location via some capability somewhere.

qwertox 6y ago

Last week my Pixel started to display an overlay with closed captions of the audio flowing through the device. It listens in on any audio and transcribes it. Probably handy for podcasts, but other things are just scary. Maybe it's OK if Google does it, I don't really know. I dislike it, it concerns me. The device would have a transcription of audio conversations I have through apps like WhatsApp. Or it could do something useful like transcribe podcasts and hand the transcription over to the owners, so that they can publish it along with their podcasts, without Google needing to dedicate their servers to it. But if companies like Xiaomi get this feature for free on Android 15 or 16, I know what they will use this tech for. I know what Facebook would use this tech for, and I wouldn't be surprised if they finally start to sell a cheap but powerful Android device. With offline transcription the "your device is recording me" will get so much harder to detect, as no audio will get streamed. It will become so easy to listen for keywords like "lawnmower" and count their occurrences or their proximity to phrases like "need to buy", or "is pregnant" and stuff like that. I don't want my devices to do this.

esrauch 6y ago
The live transcription behavior is enabled by a button at the bottom of the volume control toggle. If it transcribes even if that button is off that seems a lot more concerning. I don't think transcribing on device and then uploading would make any sense: for something like podcasts they could just do serverside transcription (they already do for youtube videos at least).
- Zhenya 6y ago
  1) press volume down 2) you should see the volume dialog with a box with squiggly lines in it at the bottom of the volume slider 3) press that to turn it off
  - qwertox 6y ago
    Thanks to both of you.
    - 6y ago

teraflop 6y ago

"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.

swiley 6y ago
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.)
- wmichelin 6y ago
  Sending telemetry _poorly_ can get expensive. A good client can aggregate, even compress locally, and publish telemetry in batches. Let's not rule out telemetry entirely because of bad implementations. I'd say the moral of the story here is that Microsoft and HP just write shitty software.
kllrnohj 6y ago
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.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- threeseed 6y ago
  Please provide evidence of this because Apple's official documentation says otherwise: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033 They do send nearly WiFi hotspots for crowd sourcing purposes but it is never in conjunction with your local IP address (which is an identifying piece of information).

hindsightbias 6y ago

You are the Product. It’s always interesting how Android is given the benefit of the doubt on intent and that never happens with iOS.

troysk 6y ago

There is a typo in the title. It should be Google and not Goolgle.

williesleg 6y ago

It's all about the data. Even here. They track who posts what, when, and from where.

yuhong 6y ago

I wrote about CompatTelRunner because of the CPU time it consumes, which even MS employees like Billy O'Neal complain about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Desktop_Analytics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Desktop_Analytics

bilal4hmed 6y ago

Seems like the answer is to use just iOS and apple products if you care about privacy.

danielrhodes 6y ago

Data collection is what companies do when they have no empathy. It's like an ivory tower effect where you don't interact with customers day to day or don't know what they want, so you try to use data to fill in the (large) gap. I could come up with countless examples of amazing products where nobody was using data to justify their decisions.

ConceptJunkie 6y ago
That's because the user of the service or device is not the customer.
- danielrhodes 6y ago
  If you're saying they are the product, that's a very old trope and easily falsified. For example, advertisers come to Facebook because, and only because, users are there. If users stopped liking Facebook, they wouldn't be there anymore. If they aren't there anymore, advertisers don't want to be there either. Thus, Facebook is incentivized to keep users happy - they are the most important people to Facebook. From what I've heard, Facebook struggles to get engineers to work on ads. If advertisers were the true customers, I imagine most engineers would be more gung-ho to work on ads because that would align more closely with career success at the company. The above doesn't justify unrestrained tracking of user activity - but let's not pretend companies get to where they are because they create a first-class space for advertisers. They get to where they are because they, at least at one point, created a great product for their customers.

jariel 6y ago

Both Google and Apple forbid health agencies around the world wanting to install apps to store similar data for the purposes of pandemic data and suppression - which is understandable that many governments would use it for all sorts of nefarious reasons, but it's also rather hypocritical that they can infer that 'we can use it for whatever because quality. And advertising'.

PieUser 6y ago

and microsoft probably collects 200X from windows...

laurensr 6y ago

Could an admin please adjust the typo in the title? Goolgle -> Google

judge2020 6y ago
The OP can also edit the title for a period of time after submission.

mankyd 6y ago

Not mentioned in the headline: When the user is _not_ logged in, iOS collects "location" whereas Android does not. I am actually a little surprised that iOS would gather this information. What use would it serve?

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
It's possible this is referring to this feature: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/apple-explains-mysterious-iphone-11-location-requests/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/apple-explains-mysteriou... Generally speaking, Apple is drastically better about location services privacy. For instance, Apple Maps does not tie any location data nor direction requests to your Apple ID, and regularly rotates identifiers for devices used by the service: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212039 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212039
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  That link is returning "429 Too Many Requests." What feature is it you're referring to?
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    There's an Ultra Wideband radio in the iPhone 11 and newer that isn't legal to use in all countries. Apple uses a location request sometimes just to determine if the device can legally run that radio or not.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
      Thanks!
    - fapjacks 6y ago
      It's nice of you to accept Apple's calling it "radio" but UWB is radar technology. Newer iPhones have radar built into them to make their location tracking more precise. Most people don't understand (or can't understand) the details, which is why the semantic load of calling UWB "radar" instead of "radio" is important for conveying its intended purpose.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

" 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 doing this because phones made it normal. It's wrong in both cases. 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.

AlexandrB 6y ago
This may be pedantic, but Steam was collecting its 30% long before the App Store opened. Thought maybe that was inspired by Apple's cut of music revenues in the iTunes Store.
- astrange 6y ago
  Older app stores and especially physical retail collected a lot more than 30%.
- adamsvystun 6y ago
  And just to be complete, there is little preventing other people from creating their own Steam (many do) or not using Steam at all (developers can publish their apps directly to users). This is not the case with the App store.
- grishka 6y ago
  You pay 30% for all the hosting and listing and payment processing. But then you aren't required to use Steam to distribute your game — you could as well set up your own website. There's nothing preventing you. There's no predatory code signing on desktop OSes. On the other hand, you can't sideload apps onto iOS devices. You HAVE to go through Apple. You either publish on the app store, or you don't have an iOS app. That's different. That's very different. That's antitrust-can't-happen-sooner different.

aboringusername 6y ago

I mean at this point it's obvious if you're using a digital device data is going to be collected, that's part of society and living in the 21st century; could be your toothbrush, fridge, washing machine, car...All these devices generate data that is going to be collected. It's also changing how crime is investigated; Google can be asked for a list of smartphones in an area at a given time, can be used to collect evidence or information (were you in this building on this floor at this time?). Carrying a smartphone can implicate you (or not) and you can be photographed by anyone at any moment regardless of your "rights". I think people need to understand you are responsible for what you do on a computer; your clicks, searches, taps, installed app list, and basically everything is being recorded regardless of consent (which appears to be an illusion these days). This is neither shocking nor unexpected. Humans generate data, data is going to be collected and used. That's not going to change any time soon. Some thought Google would introduce a similar privacy feature to Apple's tracking consent but I lol'd at anyone who believed that.

grawprog 6y ago
>I think people need to understand you are responsible for what you do on a computer; your clicks, searches, taps, installed app list, and basically everything is being recorded regardless of consent (which appears to be an illusion these days). While I agree with this in principle, I've never really understood why we forgive poor user behaviour when it comes to computers when we don't do the same with basically any other tool humans regularly use, despite the negative consequences being comparable, I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to just quietly accept 'tracking's just the way it is, deal with it.' That doesn't come down to poor user behaviour in that case, it comes down to malicious behaviour by device manufacturers and software developers in the name of profit. It's all well and good to expect users to take steps to deal with that behaviour, but it shouldn't just be accepted that, 'that's just the way it is.' And companies should be held accountable for at least the deceit that surrounds it. Just being honest and open about it all would be a start. At least then you could make the excuse 'oh well the user should have tried harder to not be tracked.' Because they have a fair chance of knowing where and how they're being tracked. This current system of deceit and bullshit is the problem.
6y ago

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

As users, we are assured that telemetry is only for the purpose of "improving products and services", "improving user experience", etc. If one company is collecting 20x as much as another, all else being equal, one would expect that this would be reflected in the quality of the product/service/experience. Of course, Google's service is to advertisers, first and foremost. Users generally do not pay for what they receive from Google. Perhaps Google's paying customers, advertisers, are the ones seeing the improvement in the quality of service as a direct or indirect result of telemetry.

darkwizard42 6y ago
I don't think this is necessarily true. I believe that Google Maps navigation and location accuracy is significantly better on Android than iOS (no claim on 20x...but anectdatally better) Google Maps getting more precise telemetry data is actually so useful in improving the navigation experience in tricky intersections, overlapping roads, or low bandwidth areas where GPS signal and service can be spotty. I can speak from experience that friends with Android phones experience less jumpiness in their GPS location, less errors in navigation, and less of that pesky "You've Arrived" notification triggering when still far away from the destination.
- andrewzah 6y ago
  Also anecdotally speaking, conversely, I used to use Waze/Google Maps, and nowadays just use Apple Maps. The latter has been more than sufficient in my day to day travels. I can't think of any errors in navigation.
ProfessorLayton 6y ago
YMMV, but as much as I like Apple Maps and use it as much as I can, for the more complex/unknown routes I definitely rely more on Google Maps to get it right. I don't know if telemetry is the cause for the better service, but it is noticeably better for me. Separately, I'm also a google customer as I run an Ad campaign for a small business (skilled labor), and the dollars spent on search ads are extremely efficient with an incredible ROI. Even with CACs in the 10s of dollars, with the size of the contracts being signed it typically costs much less than .5% of the total.

dltj 6y ago

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.

Rebelgecko 6y ago
Apple supposedly makes billions every year from ad revenue. Not a core part of their business but still nothing to sneeze at In addition to https://searchads.apple.com https://searchads.apple.com there's ads in the stock and news apps.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

chiefalchemist 6y ago

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-under-surveillance-capitalism-on-the-media https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...

relax88 6y ago

Here I am still waiting for my Purism Librem 5 I ordered in 2019 while google continues to suck up my data. Any day now...

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

This is precisely why I always choose to use the mobile version of a site/app rather than the app if it's available. Safari has great adblocking. Also, the mobile version of a site is typically a superior UX compared to apps because the controls are consistent. It's usually faster, and best of all, it's MUCH easier to block all of the tracking.

jmull 6y ago

I'd be interested to learn more. E.g, to what extent is the data anonymized? I also want to know what the data is used for and how long it is stored for, but I suppose those are very tough questions for an external researcher to test.

mustaflex 6y ago

I went to visit an apartment to rent with a friend. While waiting for the owner my friend was reading the names on the mailbox, and read the "x" out loud said "this person is probably Romanian". I when I was home I had notification if I knew this "x" person. All this time my phone was in my pocket. It is just creepy and I'm going to change my pixel 2 as soon as I can for an Iphone.

mmacvicarprett 6y ago

Why do they need IMEI for? and mac addresses of close networks (besides location). When the user gives consent for PII like IMEI, location, networks mac addresses? I wonder if both companies might be breaching the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA").

TechBro8615 6y ago
You'd have to ask Apple, but I'd imagine they would say they use it to improve location services. Access point / MAC address data is really useful in aggregate as a way of augmenting GPS, especially indoors. And of course it's also a great way of seeing who associates with each other, but that's at least somewhat mitigated by most devices broadcasting random MAC addresses until they actually join a network.

grifball 6y ago

I only skimmed the paper, but I think the title extracts and confuses a small part of the paper: "Google collects around 20 times more handset data than Apple" They didn't intend to say that google collects 20x more data than apple in total, which is what the use of the term "devices" kinda leads us to think. The paper seemed to be equally critical of both and this article made it into an attack on google. Idk which device is worse, but this article title is a bit misleading. Why not just quote the paper directly?

nojito 6y ago

Most of the info Apple sends shouldn't be considered telemetry though. The hardware info is used to make sure that blacklisted/stolen devices are rendered inoperable. The other requests are simply due to used apps...it seems the researcher is unclear about many aspects of iOS. i.e. typing a url into Safari kicks off to find links, apps, etc. that will be the logical next step for a "search" He also doesn't understand the difference between Siri the voice assistant and Siri the platform. tldr; Google vacuums everything it can...Apple is the exact opposite.

sloshnmosh 6y ago

Might I suggest Lineage OS. Very little if any data is sent out from my testing.

einpoklum 6y ago

"Google and Apple both collect a lot more telemetry from devices with Android/iOS respectively devices then they should be; with Google outdoing Apple." There, fixed that title for you.

harry8 6y ago

Every week there's a story here on HN that makes me mourn the demise of the Nokia N900. Still the best smartphone ever made by a massive margin. I hope both those things are made obsolete by stories of smartphones that work well and are vastly more trustworthy than Google and Apple. The longer it takes, the harder it gets. Whatsapp/Signal ports are now hard requirements for much of the population. :S

fsflover 6y ago
But what about Librem 5 and Pinephone?
- harry8 6y ago
  yeah, about them. Don't we all want them to go on to succeed as well as the n900? Then better. Want that badly. Or anything else similar. Not yet though, huh?
  - fsflover 6y ago
    > Not yet though, huh? Depends on your needs. Calls, texts, browsing work pretty reliably. Convergence has been demonstrated, too. Your Android banking app forced on you may work or not depending on luck.

nixass 6y ago

Google - if you're explaining you're losing

aasasd 6y ago

I'm waiting for a traffic analysis to turn up that Google gathers location, wifi APs and cell towers even when all possible consent is revoked. Because, with Google's greed, no way I'm believing that they would give that up, and I'm not turning the location service on. Reminder that Google literally provides a location database for US cops, who are getting bulk data on people simply being in some place at some time and doing nothing wrong: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/technology/google-sensorvault-location-tracking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/technology/google-sensorv... Meanwhile other countries want to make Google store that data on their territory when it's about their citizens.

jp0d 6y ago

There is no point defending Apple or Google. Both of them probably collect data. Personally I'd be more comfortable with Apple collecting my data as they don't have an Advertisement based model. They've less incentives to use our data, whereas Google's business is based around that very idea! Apple advocates privacy and has made many features available as part of the IOS to enable very granular level control.

noelniles 6y ago

Just to be clear the actual paper mentions Android exactly zero times.

noelniles 6y ago

Just to be clear the actual paper mentions Android exactly ZERO times.

dalu 6y ago

Google needs to be reined in. They're running wild. Too arrogant, too powerful, too much influence. And actively evil.

hnburnsy 6y ago

From the study[0]... "Several pre-installed system apps make regular network connections that share device identifiers and details ... The Clock app connects to Google Analytics ssl. google-analytics.com/batch." Really, the clock app calls analytics on a regular basis. That is just ridiculous. [0]-https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf

dav43 6y ago

Some anecdotal from the Apple camp. I've switch off every possible toggle on Apple TVs, iPhones MacBooks and all the devices still ping back to Apple HQ with time.apple.com, time-osx.g.aaplimg.com, metrics.icloud.com..... so I take this with a grain of salt. I've logged all DNS - using nextdns - and the number of requests back to HQ is more that it should be.

Causality1 6y ago

It's all the little needling ways that get to me. For example, Google Maps works fine with GPS. However, if you drag the map view so it isn't centered on you and tap the "center" button, you get a pop-up begging you to let Google scan for access points even when your wifi is turned off. Hit no and hit the center button again and it works normally. Fucking why, Google? It's irrelevant to the function I'm trying to use. Not only that but you already have my answer, which is no. Maybe I don't want to be your personal 24/7 wardriver. Maybe I don't want you running my battery down for no reason. Maybe I'm somewhere I'm not allowed to emit 2.4GHz signals and your scanning could get me in trouble with my job or even the law.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

One thing I noticed is that Google does not collect location and nearby MACs by default and Apple does. That's a pretty serious difference IMO. And one I didn't expect. Some skips the device's own MAC but they already know that anyway as they manufactured it.

GekkePrutser 6y ago
By "Some" I meant "Apple". Autocorrect (swiping) with my fat fingers :P

shp0ngle 6y ago

Google makes money by collecting data (and lately, cloud services), Apple makes money by selling hardware and putting huge margin on it. (And lately, cloud services.) So it's all not surprising, really? Different business models lead to different outcomes.

xtat 6y ago

I guess this is interesting but it's comparing trash with garbage

bronlund 6y ago

I think the most important point here is missing. When Google collects data, it's the basis of their whole existence. It is the source of their main stream of income. When Apple does it, I'm sure it helps, but that data is not the reason Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world. And that is why I use iPhone.

estomagordo 6y ago

So they have 20x better informed decisions in their development processes then. Good!

dvhh 6y ago

I would wager that a good share of it would be device vendor related telemetry

antman 6y ago

Well I have a different personal email account and a different google phone account. There used to be more android mail apps that allow logging in directly without using the phone’s credentials but its getting more and more rare. Any Android mail apps suggestionsthat use web login than android are welcome

omar_kha 6y ago

shouldn't be sending any. need a pure Linux phone to deal with Google

sunstone 6y ago

You can turn "location" off on Android just as you can turn "third party cookies" off on the Chrome browser. Google counts on 95% of users not doing that. Neither of these are perfect solutions but they do help a lot for minimal effort. EDIT And this just in, more third party cookies: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/google-testing-its-controversial-new-ad-targeting-tech-millions-browsers-heres

sizzle 6y ago

“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. Second, that the telemetry collection process allows the OS makers to track users’ location based on the IP address that connects and uploads device telemetry to their servers. The researcher said that currently, there are very few, if any, realistic options for users to prevent telemetry collection from their devices.” This is not what I signed up for, makes me want to leave my smartphone at home or in a faraday cage powered off so I’m not being triangulated by cell towers or these ubiquitous telemetry logs.

zibzab 6y ago

Not sure if I agree with the author. For example, the phones send tons of data to Google when first booted. But there is no data on the phone at that point! Then maybe this is not data gathering just bad software??

niutech 6y ago
There IS a lot of data even at the very first boot: unique device ID, IP address, MAC address, location, SSID, etc. It can be used to track you later on.
- zibzab 6y ago
  Thats like 1K data in total
  - niutech 6y ago
    But it's very sensitive data.

boston_clone 6y ago

Approaching this constructively - is it possible that this data is used for verification purposes? E.g. iOS will alert your iCloud account if it detects a new IMEI/phone number? The claim of “20x more data” is a bit suspect as well. 20x the byte-level amount of data? Yes, the math checks out. 20x the data points? Likely not.

JacobSuperslav 6y ago

I got a feeling the only reason here is that Google is a search engine/ad business and Apple isn't.