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 acco

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).