As a consumer I am very disappointed and feel being deceived by Google.
Why Google and not the maker of the phone? They're the ones that wrote the backdoor that sent stuff to China. You're not suggesting that Google helped with that, are you?
Why Google and not the maker of the phone? They're the ones that wrote the backdoor that sent stuff to China. You're not suggesting that Google helped with that, are you?
You want me to tell you why Google won't do anything, because Google doesn't give a crap about what manufacturers do as long as they keep installing Android on as many phones as possible and in return they get more advertising dollars.
> You want me to tell you why Google won't do anything, because Google doesn't give a crap about what manufacturers do as long as they keep installing Android on as many phones as possible
Google could allow controlling firewall on Android (and getting root access). The only reason they don't do it is because then users will be able to block tracking and advertisement.
If it's GMS Certified, sure.
It's possible (common even) for some shady OEMs to install Google Play Store, despite not being GMS certified. Asking them to prevent that is a lot like demanding a stop to all software piracy.
And why exactly is that bad?
Do you demand Microsoft take action because say Lenovo installs superfish?
You make Lenovo fix it instead of a tangentially related company like Microsoft.
Same thing here. It's not a Google issue.
While it makes sense to hit the vendors directly to the extent possible, it also costs these platforms trust when most of the ways users end up with them have them compromised from day one. I.e. do I give relatives a list of vendors I think might be safe to use without a complete wipe and fresh install? For windows that is impossible.
Or they could not to sell Android license to companies not repecting consumer's privacy.
Even if I got refunded, what would I buy instead? Free market doesn't work here and all major manufacturers have some form of tracking and preinstalled software built in. It looks like the only way is to buy a backdoored proprietary device and replace a ROM (and then solve all kinds of problems with hardware not working properly or battery getting drained).
And the manufacturer could simply unroot the phone and lock its bootloader. At the end of the day it's the phone manufacturer that controls the product, even if Google tries to prohibit such practices in its contracts.
And generally it is pretty decent model. It sends some data home but at least it doesn't have preinstalled adware like another chinese tablet I saw (that displays an ad over browser window and tries to disguise it as a part of a web page).