Google caught hiding location settings in Android

Google defenseless hiding location settings in Android

Android 12 release date, beta and features

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Documents from Arizona's antitrust lawsuit against Google take been unredacted, and brand awkward reading for the visitor. As spotted by Insider, the documents were uncensored by a judge following pressure from Digital Content Adjacent and News Media Alliance and pigment the picture of a company trying to foreclose Android users from enacting their right to privacy.

Amongst other things, the documents reveal that Google would push tertiary-party Android manufacturers to obscure settings "through active misrepresentations and/or concealment, or omission of facts," and make popular privacy settings catchy to locate.

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The documents note that when Google tested a version of Android with privacy settings front end and eye, the visitor found information technology to be a "problem" that too many users were taking advantage. Every bit a event, the settings were buried deeper so but the determined could discover them.

It'due south not merely users who were confused by the labyrinthian privacy menus, though. Jen Chai, a senior production manager for location services, wasn't clear on how various privacy settings interacted with each other, and other employees were every bit thrown.

"So there is no way to give a third party app your location and not Google?" one employee is quoted as saying. "This doesn't audio like something we would want on the front end page of the [New York Times]."

Another manifestly found the visitor'southward information hunger unsettling: "Fail #2: *I* should exist able to become *my* location on *my* telephone without sharing that information with Google," the employee said.

"This may be how Apple is eating our lunch," the employee added, stating it was "much more likely" to let users opt out of information sharing with the visitor.

The extent of Google'south knowledge about its Android userbase was revealed via Jack Menzel, a former vice president of Google Maps, who explained that the but way Google couldn't figure out a user'southward home and piece of work locations would exist if the app was intentionally fed dummy addresses.

All of this is interesting background for the upcoming release of Android 12, which volition introduce a new Privacy Dashboard and the power to brand your location tracking a piffling more fuzzy to apps that request your position.

If the unredacted statements are a off-white reflection on the company civilization, then information technology may be that the options are purely to counter the user protections introduced for iOS 14.5 rather than whatsoever deep commitment to privacy.

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Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, roofing phones, drones and everything in betwixt. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are plant all over the spider web and in the occasional magazine too. When non weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, y'all'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. Or, more likely, playing Spelunky for the millionth time.