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>Epic’s proposal hurts the privacy of Android users: Under Epic’s proposal, Google would be forced to tell any and all third party app stores which apps a user

by Xeamek 2y ago

>Epic’s proposal hurts the privacy of Android users: Under Epic’s proposal, Google would be forced to tell any and all third party app stores which apps a user has installed on their phone through Google Play. It would wrongly expose a person’s personal apps usage – even for topics like religion, politics, or health — for Epic’s gain. This is a clear violation of user privacy. If an app has permissions to work as an app stores, it should already be able to query installed packages, no? So Epic's proposal wouldn't expose information about whether or not app is installed, but only about the source of installation. You can ofcourse still think it's unreasonable to give this information to 3rd parties, but that's different then exposing just the fact of having an app installed, which is what Google implies here (imo)

KennyBlanken 2y ago
> If an app has permissions to work as an app stores, it should already be able to query installed packages, no? They say "any and all third party app stores." Does that include app stores the user hasn't installed? Google may collect a massive amount of data, but virtually none of it ever leaves Google. I believe, but I'm not sure, that requests to use data collected about users has to pass through something like a Google equivalent to a IRB, and strictly only used in aggregate ways or anonymized? Google does not tell anyone what apps you install (though they also don't prevent apps you install from collecting and reporting what apps you have installed...) Third parties could do whatever they want. That said, Android app permissions are so permissive, anyone using Android effectively doesn't have much privacy from third parties to begin with. It's why I switched to iOS - apps are much more restricted in terms of what data it's even possible to collect, and you even have a lot of control over many types of data provided to Apple (for example, you can turn off WiFi geolocation collection, traffic data collection, etc. It's great for battery life and data savings!)
- Xeamek 2y ago
  >They say "any and all third party app stores." Does that include app stores the user hasn't installed I don't see how it would even be feasible to share this data with non-installed stores, not to mention it being completely ridiculous.

by Xeamek 2y ago

KennyBlanken 2y ago

> If an app has permissions to work as an app stores, it should already be able to query installed packages, no? They say "any and all third party app stores." Does that include app stores the user hasn't installed? Google may collect a massive amount of data, but virtually none of it ever leaves Google. I believe, but I'm not sure, that requests to use data collected about users has to pass through something like a Google equivalent to a IRB, and strictly only used in aggregate ways or anonymized? Google does not tell anyone what apps you install (though they also don't prevent apps you install from collecting and reporting what apps you have installed...) Third parties could do whatever they want. That said, Android app permissions are so permissive, anyone using Android effectively doesn't have much privacy from third parties to begin with. It's why I switched to iOS - apps are much more restricted in terms of what data it's even possible to collect, and you even have a lot of control over many types of data provided to Apple (for example, you can turn off WiFi geolocation collection, traffic data collection, etc. It's great for battery life and data savings!)

Xeamek 2y ago
>They say "any and all third party app stores." Does that include app stores the user hasn't installed I don't see how it would even be feasible to share this data with non-installed stores, not to mention it being completely ridiculous.