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I'm not sure I follow. What specifically about apps would make you think it's designed to exploit the user? I know Android apps are more likely to be ad-support

I'm not sure I follow. What specifically about apps would make you think it's designed to exploit the user? I know Android apps are more likely to be ad-supported (hence YOU are the product) but looking at my iPhone, I have Instagram for taking photos and sharing it with my family/friends, Lyft to get rides around the city when I don't want to drive, Dropbox for automatically backing up my photos, Google Maps for Navigation and OpenTable for booking restaurant reservations so I don't have to call them and ask for times they are available and wait on hold forever. Seems to me that in all of these cases, there is clear benefit to me and serves my needs as the end-user.

marssaxman 12y ago
I can't see or control what information gets sent where. I don't know what gets logged and sent to Google. I refrain from using Google credentials on the phone in case that makes it harder for Google to correlate what happens on my phone with my activity on the web in general. I disable the location services in case that makes it more difficult for someone to watch my location and movements. I don't know if it helps because there is no way I know about to find out what is being logged or where it is being sent. App permissions seem to be completely coarse-grained, and they all seem to need access to potentially huge amounts of personal data. I can't, so far as I know, disable their access to specific bits of data I don't want them to have; nor do I know of any mechanism for blacklisting or whitelisting access to specific internet hosts. My Moto X decided a while back that it wanted to upgrade itself and started bringing up a nag screen at frequent intervals, interrupting whatever I was doing. There is no way I can discover to turn this off, and there is no way to decline the upgrade. It just kept nagging me, many times a day, for months. I can't disable this behavior; I can only choose between reduced functionality (getting interrupted mid-sentence and having to dismiss a dialog many times a day) or letting this remote server take over and install its software on my hardware. In the end I feel like this device doesn't actually belong to me at all. It's more like a rental apartment: I can use it, and I can keep my stuff in it if I want to, but ultimately it belongs to the landlord; which in this case is a combination of Google, Motorola, and T-Mobile. The deal seems pretty clear: they get to decide what I am allowed to do with my phone, they get to decide where my information goes and who gets to see it, and I can either accept the deal or not use the phone. For the most part I have chosen the latter.
- calbear81 12y ago
  Thanks for providing more context and I can understand your perspective as a privacy-minded individual. I think for most people, privacy is secondary to convenience and we basically sell data about ourselves in exchange for free use of these services that have become an essential part of our life. I also think it's extremely hard to piece-meal control what permissions are allowed and requires substantially more work from app developers to consider all the possible conditional cases and have well thought out experiences when some/all pieces of data are missing. In many cases, it's just a matter of what is practical and doable in light of constrained resources. Not giving them a pass, but offering a possible reason instead of assuming malicious intent.
- apayan 12y ago
  You might enjoy using CyanogenMod on your phone. No google account required, and it gives you a lot more control over Android.
WorldWideWayne 12y ago
Clearly there are benefits to these apps, but the concern was about exploiting the user. Presumably, the chief concerns are tracking and security. For instance, why does DropBox need to access my entire contact list just to backup my photos? Some people don't even think about it, others don't care but some do.
- calbear81 12y ago
  Does Dropbox ask for that? On my phone, I don't have to give DropBox access to my contact list to use it. I think one of the challenges is that a lot of what an app maker wants to do is not known yet but they want to mine the user data to identify patterns that might help them decide on what features to build next or provide insight on how they should improve their app. Given this, they err on the side of asking for more data vs. less. On a mobile device, this definitely feels much more invasive given that our phones are basically "tied at the hip" when compared to classic web tracking techniques.

marssaxman 12y ago

I can't see or control what information gets sent where. I don't know what gets logged and sent to Google. I refrain from using Google credentials on the phone in case that makes it harder for Google to correlate what happens on my phone with my activity on the web in general. I disable the location services in case that makes it more difficult for someone to watch my location and movements. I don't know if it helps because there is no way I know about to find out what is being logged or where it is being sent. App permissions seem to be completely coarse-grained, and they all seem to need access to potentially huge amounts of personal data. I can't, so far as I know, disable their access to specific bits of data I don't want them to have; nor do I know of any mechanism for blacklisting or whitelisting access to specific internet hosts. My Moto X decided a while back that it wanted to upgrade itself and started bringing up a nag screen at frequent intervals, interrupting whatever I was doing. There is no way I can discover to turn this off, and there is no way to decline the upgrade. It just kept nagging me, many times a day, for months. I can't disable this behavior; I can only choose between reduced functionality (getting interrupted mid-sentence and having to dismiss a dialog many times a day) or letting this remote server take over and install its software on my hardware. In the end I feel like this device doesn't actually belong to me at all. It's more like a rental apartment: I can use it, and I can keep my stuff in it if I want to, but ultimately it belongs to the landlord; which in this case is a combination of Google, Motorola, and T-Mobile. The deal seems pretty clear: they get to decide what I am allowed to do with my phone, they get to decide where my information goes and who gets to see it, and I can either accept the deal or not use the phone. For the most part I have chosen the latter.

calbear81 12y ago
Thanks for providing more context and I can understand your perspective as a privacy-minded individual. I think for most people, privacy is secondary to convenience and we basically sell data about ourselves in exchange for free use of these services that have become an essential part of our life. I also think it's extremely hard to piece-meal control what permissions are allowed and requires substantially more work from app developers to consider all the possible conditional cases and have well thought out experiences when some/all pieces of data are missing. In many cases, it's just a matter of what is practical and doable in light of constrained resources. Not giving them a pass, but offering a possible reason instead of assuming malicious intent.
apayan 12y ago
You might enjoy using CyanogenMod on your phone. No google account required, and it gives you a lot more control over Android.

WorldWideWayne 12y ago

Clearly there are benefits to these apps, but the concern was about exploiting the user. Presumably, the chief concerns are tracking and security. For instance, why does DropBox need to access my entire contact list just to backup my photos? Some people don't even think about it, others don't care but some do.

calbear81 12y ago
Does Dropbox ask for that? On my phone, I don't have to give DropBox access to my contact list to use it. I think one of the challenges is that a lot of what an app maker wants to do is not known yet but they want to mine the user data to identify patterns that might help them decide on what features to build next or provide insight on how they should improve their app. Given this, they err on the side of asking for more data vs. less. On a mobile device, this definitely feels much more invasive given that our phones are basically "tied at the hip" when compared to classic web tracking techniques.