Android has a permission for internet access. It's still there, but enabled for everybody by default. This was an intentional decision on the part of Google. B

Android has a permission for internet access. It's still there, but enabled for everybody by default. This was an intentional decision on the part of Google. Back in the day, you could install Android apps that explicitly did not use the internet permission. You could make your installation decisions based on whether apps requested that permission and whether it made sense for them to do so. Some AOSP mods even let you disable that permission for apps (though YMMV as to how well that actually worked in practice).