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Comment by laurent92 | Hacker News Reader

I like how we are focussing on this Facebook-Apple story, and meanwhile the real story is that Facebook has nothing against Google.

And that is the big problem.

It’s a form of disenfranchisement: Lowerclass people more often have Androids and have much less choice in tracking, while higherclass people can at least choose, by the sheer design of their phone.

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For one thing, Google doesn't have complete control over Android. Facebook preinstalls itself onto many phones, and oftentimes updates to its apps are installed without any Google involvement whatsoever — they have an updater app that is capable of silently installing apks the same way Google Play does.

How would you solve this problem?

iOS is: - requesting permissions at the time of using the feature, - giving permissions like GPS only for limited time, or to subsets of photos only, - and requires app to keep full features if permission is not granted.

It should be required that Android did the same. After all, a pure market is where people are fully informed and have a choice, so there could be a theoretical basis for requiring Android not to be confusing with permissions.

> It should be required that Android did the same.

Assuming you go through Google Play, which you aren't required to. And assuming Google Play actually reviews apps, including every single update, which it sometimes does but crappily.

Also the fact that Google hasn't updated their app in three months because they don't want to be bound to the change Apple made.

^^ Zuckerberg is a noisy neighbour having a tantrum if he's taking this personally.

Not a problem, because he bought his neighbour houses, too, so he can have his privacy.

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/300...

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