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Yep, it's sneaky too. It appears as an option so you'd assume it just does it, but when you go ahead and try it, it's just a friendly message telling you that

by muyuu 14y ago

Yep, it's sneaky too. It appears as an option so you'd assume it just does it, but when you go ahead and try it, it's just a friendly message telling you that you actually need to do a factory reset and a friendly warning that you will lose all your information and installed applications. There are ways - 3rd party apps - to easily restore/backup app lists but you usually lose any app information you had there, like hiscores or contacts for instance, and of course paid apps. Google social engineering at its best.

fpgeek 14y ago
Wait a minute. The apps you've downloaded from the Android Market / Play Store are associated with a Google account. If you log off of that Google account you should lose everything associated with that account - including apps you've downloaded. Logging off wouldn't be complete otherwise. Plus you have to lose all of data stored in any non-downloaded Google apps, for the same reason. There are a few things left (e.g. alarms and the non-Gmail email app), but I think it is entirely reasonable that Google didn't spend a lot of effort on that corner-case - especially since the main privacy risk is an incomplete log off that leaves behind something it shouldn't.
- muyuu 14y ago
  An association I don't ask for, and I'm willing to waive in order to keep my apps physically in my device. Note that these are largely non-DRM apps. But wait, there's more. They also delete the contacts, both those stored in the account (those, understandably) and those stored in the phone. Did I mention they force a FACTORY RESET? call logs, notes, saved app data, you get the idea. If you root your phone you can solve this, and even without rooting there are still hacks to avoid the deletion, proving that this is perfectly possible. But Google prefers to make it a DESTRUCTIVE thing for you to try and circumvent being tracked at all times. It's not a corner case. A lot of us don't want to be tracked at all times.
  - fpgeek 14y ago
    But now you're asking Google to intuit which bits of privacy you want (no Google app data) and which you don't (non-Google apps associated with your Google account are ok). What about non-Google apps that use Google services / APIs on your behalf? What about apps that were non-Google when you downloaded them but were later bought by Google? And on and on. Plus, other people are going to draw the line in different places. Should Google present a giant switchboard where you can decide exactly what to keep and what to get rid of? I feel sure that if they had, someone else would be here talking about Google's "social engineering" because they make the process of deactivating your Google account on an Android device so complicated. The overwhelmingly commonest case for deactivating the primary Google account on an Android device is because you're giving that device to someone else. In that case you almost always actively want a factory reset. It is entirely reasonable for Google to keep things simple and optimize for that. In most other cases, the data (not apps) you're talking about is either backed up to your Google account and/or can be straightforwardly backed up another way (e.g. apps letting you export to the SD card, emailing yourself notes, etc.). Dealing with those sorts of issues in your corner case isn't an unreasonable burden (contrast this with the Facebook situation, where almost everyone exporting their contacts from Facebook wants the email addresses, too).
    - muyuu 14y ago
      No. It's pretty simple really. I just want them to let me delete the account and just the account, leaving my stuff alone and destroying nothing. Just like it happens when you do it with a rooted device.
cookiecaper 14y ago
>3rd party apps - to easily restore/backup app lists but you usually lose any app information you had there, like hiscores or contacts for instance, and of course paid apps. Titanium Backup restores practically everything, including application data like high scores.
- muyuu 14y ago
  Would have been nice to have when that happened to me. Now I have enough throwaway Google accounts not to care about that. In fact, I only have throwaway accounts now, for good measure :-)

by muyuu 14y ago

fpgeek 14y ago

Wait a minute. The apps you've downloaded from the Android Market / Play Store are associated with a Google account. If you log off of that Google account you should lose everything associated with that account - including apps you've downloaded. Logging off wouldn't be complete otherwise. Plus you have to lose all of data stored in any non-downloaded Google apps, for the same reason. There are a few things left (e.g. alarms and the non-Gmail email app), but I think it is entirely reasonable that Google didn't spend a lot of effort on that corner-case - especially since the main privacy risk is an incomplete log off that leaves behind something it shouldn't.

muyuu 14y ago
An association I don't ask for, and I'm willing to waive in order to keep my apps physically in my device. Note that these are largely non-DRM apps. But wait, there's more. They also delete the contacts, both those stored in the account (those, understandably) and those stored in the phone. Did I mention they force a FACTORY RESET? call logs, notes, saved app data, you get the idea. If you root your phone you can solve this, and even without rooting there are still hacks to avoid the deletion, proving that this is perfectly possible. But Google prefers to make it a DESTRUCTIVE thing for you to try and circumvent being tracked at all times. It's not a corner case. A lot of us don't want to be tracked at all times.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  But now you're asking Google to intuit which bits of privacy you want (no Google app data) and which you don't (non-Google apps associated with your Google account are ok). What about non-Google apps that use Google services / APIs on your behalf? What about apps that were non-Google when you downloaded them but were later bought by Google? And on and on. Plus, other people are going to draw the line in different places. Should Google present a giant switchboard where you can decide exactly what to keep and what to get rid of? I feel sure that if they had, someone else would be here talking about Google's "social engineering" because they make the process of deactivating your Google account on an Android device so complicated. The overwhelmingly commonest case for deactivating the primary Google account on an Android device is because you're giving that device to someone else. In that case you almost always actively want a factory reset. It is entirely reasonable for Google to keep things simple and optimize for that. In most other cases, the data (not apps) you're talking about is either backed up to your Google account and/or can be straightforwardly backed up another way (e.g. apps letting you export to the SD card, emailing yourself notes, etc.). Dealing with those sorts of issues in your corner case isn't an unreasonable burden (contrast this with the Facebook situation, where almost everyone exporting their contacts from Facebook wants the email addresses, too).
  - muyuu 14y ago
    No. It's pretty simple really. I just want them to let me delete the account and just the account, leaving my stuff alone and destroying nothing. Just like it happens when you do it with a rooted device.

cookiecaper 14y ago

>3rd party apps - to easily restore/backup app lists but you usually lose any app information you had there, like hiscores or contacts for instance, and of course paid apps. Titanium Backup restores practically everything, including application data like high scores.

muyuu 14y ago
Would have been nice to have when that happened to me. Now I have enough throwaway Google accounts not to care about that. In fact, I only have throwaway accounts now, for good measure :-)