Google isn't imposing anything, AFAIK. The permissions exist because there are reasonable applications that might want them (e.g. contact sync). Quora is decidi

Google isn't imposing anything, AFAIK. The permissions exist because there are reasonable applications that might want them (e.g. contact sync). Quora is deciding what permissions to ask for. They could ask for more or less (other sites/services do), but they don't.