{"id":8910,"date":"2020-06-02T13:49:33","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T17:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8910"},"modified":"2020-06-02T13:49:33","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T17:49:33","slug":"arizona-sues-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8910","title":{"rendered":"Arizona Sues Google"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I said previously, if you care about privacy, you shouldn\u2019t be using an Android phone<\/a>. My point was that even if you believe Android phones are technically superior or equivalent to the iPhone, no reasonable person can doubt that Apple is much<\/i> better on privacy than Google\u2019s Android-based phones. That argument was based on especially egregious behavior by Android phone manufacturer Xiaomi. But it turns out that maybe you don\u2019t need Xiaomi to make that case.<\/p>\n

Arizona is suing Google over allegations it illegally tracked Android smartphone users\u2019 locations<\/a>. This is not Xiaomi or any other manufacturer: it\u2019s Google\u2019s Android operating system itself that\u2019s being challenged. The Arizona DA says that Google tracks users even if they disable it. The DA claims that Google still collects some location information unless the user turns off another hard-to-find option.<\/p>\n

Everyone here knows I\u2019m not a fan of Google but I\u2019m conflicted about this. It\u2019s certainly true that Google makes it extraordinarily difficult to stop them from tracking you and their behavior is otherwise reprehensible but I\u2019m not sure about these charges.<\/p>\n

The functions for which Google still collects data is Maps and Weather. A case can be made, I think, that gathering location information is needed to make these applications useful. I\u2019m pretty outraged that the French and Italians are fining Apple over their slowing down old iPhones to preserve battery power and going after Google for getting location data for Maps or Weather feels the same to me.<\/p>\n

Of course, just because you need to figure out where a user is to deliver optimal Maps or Weather results doesn\u2019t mean you have to record and send the data back to Google. The Washington Post article doesn\u2019t make it clear exactly what\u2019s happening but you don\u2019t have to be a cynic to be suspicious of Googles intentions. They do, after all, have a track record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I said previously, if you care about privacy, you shouldn\u2019t be using an Android phone. My point was that even if you believe Android phones are technically superior or equivalent to the iPhone, no reasonable person can doubt that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-8910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8911,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8910\/revisions\/8911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}