[rurban]

Maybe it would have helped missing out in the mandatory spying features, and providing only the required customer features.

Those features really take a lot of memory:

* “Record audio with the microphone … at any time without your confirmation”

* Take videos and photos using the camera

* Access the phone’s call log

* Read data about contacts stored on the phone, “including the frequency with which you’ve called, emailed or communicated in other ways with specific individuals”

[kalleboo]

> * “Record audio with the microphone … at any time without your confirmation”

There's no way in Android to record audio with the microphone at only certain times with your confirmation. Facebook needs microphone access for video and voice calling.

> * Take videos and photos using the camera

The Facebook app lets you take photos and videos to post on your feed. How else would they be able to do that without camera access?

I can't speak for the other two (I use iOS myself) but Androids permissions are generally way too broad (stuff like to be able to pause music when the user is making a call you have to ask for access to their phone number and the phone numbers of everyone calling them) and users have to accept the kitchen sink. The "Facebook spying" stuff is an Android bug, not Facebook.

[danielweber]

The Facebook app lets you take photos and videos to post on your feed. How else would they be able to do that without camera access?

Isn't the point of the Android app model of breaking everything up into Activities that you can call another Activity which does the video/photo recording, and then you just deal with the result?

(That's not a rhetorical question; I may be misunderstanding the intent of the design, or how people use the design in reality, or both.)

[aguyhere123]

Yes, you're right that activities are broken up like that. Permissions are defined in the application manifest, and apply to all activities within the application.

Facebook would have to break their application into a calling app and newsfeed app to split the permissions apart. It would still request permission to record and take videos for both, though, if they implemented video recording on the newsfeed app.

[warfangle]

> How else would they be able to do that without camera access?

Open gallery, click share, select facebook from list.