[jjcon]

Just go see for yourself: https://myactivity.google.com/

Location, web searches, app usage etc etc. Try turning all tracking off and your phone becomes a brick. Google Assistant no longer works, google maps can no longer remember where your home and work are (cause that can’t happen on device for some reason). Top it all off and you’ll get constant pop ups asking you to turn it back on.... not fun.

[bad_user]

Yes, I know about the Google profile, it's transparent and I turned Google's app activity off. My Google profile is right now empty.

That's not Android.

Let me repeat the question — how does Android track you?

[jjcon]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

That’s virtually every android device in existence. Just because someone degoogled an android once as an experiment doesn’t mean it becomes the new definition of what android is.

[bad_user]

I am familiar too with the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, I don't necessarily see how it applies here.

Dare I ask what the point is?

---

I am not talking about de-Googled Android. Turning off web/app activity in your Google profile is not equivalent with de-Googling your Android.

I am asking how does Android, Google's Android distribution not anything else, tracks users?

[jjcon]

> I am asking how does Android, Google's Android distribution not anything else, tracks users?

And I am saying it is a pointless thought experiment to separate Google from Android. Next you’ll say it’s the hardware that is android, not the software and ask how the hardware directly tracks users.

Edit: Read my original comment again, you are changing the subject. I haven’t said anything remotely conspiratorial, Google is open about their tracking in android. My point is that Google tracks you on android and if you turn it off your phone becomes crippled and in many cases for no reason except that google wants to make it as painful as possible to turn off data collection. Data collection is their business model after all.

[bad_user]

OK, let me put it another way ...

iOS too ships with Google as the default search engine and just like on iOS, you can pick a different default on Android too. In fact Android has always allowed for changing all meaningful defaults, not something you can say about iOS. And in fact the world's leading Android makers, like Samsung, all of them ship with different defaults except for the Search engine (we're talking browser, email application, etc).

And all desktops actually ship with a browser that default to a search engine that tracks your searches, including Microsoft's Edge and their integration with Bing Ads. And Google is in fact the most transparent about what they track.

So if your answer is the Google Profile, which is transparent and can be turned off, then it's a pretty shitty answer. Unless you can point to implementation details in Android proper, all of this is just a conspiracy theory, similar to anti-vaxxing.

[anoncake]

Android is commonly understood as Android with Google stuff as pre-installed on most phones. As opposed to AOSP.

[underwater]

> google maps can no longer remember where your home and work are (cause that can’t happen on device for some reason)

This is such a user-hostile product choice. Google will happily let me favourite a place but refuse to create work and home labels.

[lern_too_spel]

That's not Android. Those are Google apps. They would track you just the same if you ran them on iOS or any other OS, and you can turn them off very easily.

[Mediterraneo10]

This is not limited to just those with Google Play Services installed. Even nearly pure AOSP builds like LineageOS still default to Google’s DNS servers, wifi gateway checks, and SUPL server, and replacing those defaults with privacy-respecting alternatives has been made harder due to changes that Google pushed into AOSP.

[bad_user]

Google Play Services provides valuable services that need a backend component.

I asked for evidence that Google tracks you in nefarious ways via Android.

Am I being tracked when using their DNS servers, which are otherwise very valuable for people suffering from DNS-level banning of websites?

And what do you mean by "privacy respecting"?

Words are cheap. I hope the privacy respecting apps and services you use can guarantee that either via technology (encryption, open source, reproducible builds), or via contract (and a ToS that can be changed on a whim for a free service isn't a contract that can protect you).

[Mediterraneo10]

> I hope the privacy respecting apps and services you use can guarantee that either via technology (encryption, open source, reproducible builds)

This is what the F-Droid repository is all about. But again, Google has insisted on changes to AOSP that will shortly make it much more difficult for ordinary users (i.e. those who cannot use the command line) to make use of such free and libre offerings.

[lern_too_spel]

You can replace them much more easily than you can on iOS, and you don't even need to install a third party ROM. You can turn SUPL off entirely on any Android phone out of the box, while you cannot on iOS.