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Comment by hoschicz | Hacker News Reader

What is the worst thing about G Play Services you can't turn off?

The fact that everything you do is linked to a google account.

Probably the fact that Google Play Services can update itself without your approval or consent, so Google can push any antiprivacy feature to your phone they want without your knowledge at any time.

Play Services meets basically every definition of malware.

Hyperbole much?

Not really. Strictly speaking Google Play Services is a rootkit. One that can be used remotely. And it contains heaps of invasive user tracking code. Is is pretty much malware.

Yet on geek kingdom, bad Microsoft pushing W10 telemetry on us, but Google is cool and doesn't do no evil.

To be fair though, it is important that we continue to pressure Microsoft about their telemetry practices as well. Microsoft's business doesn't depend on data collection, and they could very easily return to not mandatorily collecting it, but our voices on the issue have not been loud enough yet. (And actually, as I recently discovered, Microsoft won't allow you to submit feedback about their apps unless telemetry is enabled at the Enhanced or Full levels on their OSes.)

But, I do agree that Google gets naturally positive response and Microsoft gets automatically negative response, even though many of their practices are quite similar.

Googles much nmore threatening to privacy the way i see it.

> Google is cool and doesn't do no evil.

That expired in 2015.

Generally, people who say one is bad will say the other is bad too.

The exceptions are brand fanatics.

I don't think many geeks think that anymore.

Genuine question, what user tracking is there that isn't opt out?

How would I know for sure?

I blocked mine from using body sensors, microphone and camera and it now complains that it needs them whenever I fire up the gmail app.

It doesn't. Gmail works fine. It still whinges though.

Software which nags and annoys the user is malware.

Besides the security issues that other people will talk about, it's huge in terms of both RAM usage and storage, so if you have a low-end phone, that's quite significant. It can also be a major battery consumer.

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