Yes, and they leak info to advertisers, as I point out here [1].

And I know it is against the rules to complain about this, but somehow that link got downvoted for mysterious reasons. I think I'm raising a valid point here.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12899160

I think it got downvoted because it is inaccurate.

* You can opt-out entirely on interest-based advertising with google [1]. You can also just delete your cookies/only browse in incognito/etc.

* Advertisers cannot target audiences with less than 100 people (1000 for search ads)[2] so they can only get a 1% chance of identifying "you" (this will go down as the list grows above 100), and even then that is only if you click on an ad for their product which is typically way under 1% as well. So less than 1% of the time, they have a maximum of 1% chance of identifying "you".

* They do not sell your personal information [3]

[1] - https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en-GB

[2] - https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2472738?hl=en-GB

[3] - https://privacy.google.com/intl/en-GB/how-ads-work.html

* That is inaccurate: Google's ad controls panel says this (after fully disabling targeted advertising): "Ads you see may still be based on your general location (such as city or county) or recent searches"

* Even if advertisers can target audiences in groups of at least 100 people, advertisers can run multiple campaigns and make an intersection of the sets of people they find, to still "identify" me.

* Yes, they don't sell personal information directly. This one is correct, and there is no reason to believe otherwise.

You can argue that my points are far-fetched, but in the end I am the one who determines the value of my data, not Google.

I like the related materials at the end, particularly the layperson's description of their facial recognition tech https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/pattern-recogni...

I'd like to think I'm so savvy that nothing in that Privacy document would surprise me. But I haven't really read the whole thing. It'd be a good class assignment to make students read the policies of major services and write down what they were most surprised by, just to get a sense of how technically savvy they are.

The irony being that if you want to know what they hold about you have to create an account to identify yorself to them..

Is there a fork of Android that strips away Google's intrusion? One that is also maintained often too.

But, as with other flavors, you'll pretty much have to use the Google Services to get your apps working (notifications etc.)

Indeed, the problem is far from solved, but there is hope. Some apps can already be replaced:

https://prism-break.org/en/categories/android/

Where does it state CyanogenMod is privacy focused or even privacy orientated?

For example, it has Privacy Guard by default, does not send any info to the mothership, gives you the control over your device, etc: https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Why_Mod%3F.

Another small discussion saying it fits for privacy-oriented users:

https://forum.cyanogenmod.org/topic/28109-cyanogenmod-from-a...

Thanks. I didn't see anything on their website to say they are focused on increasing security but maybe its not one of their main goals. I'll read into the links you posted. Cheers.

AOSP

> Example Whilst we currently don’t ask for a credit card during sign up, verifying your age through a small credit card transaction is one way to confirm that you meet our age requirements in case your account was disabled after you have entered a birthday indicating you are not old enough to have a Google Account.

Pay us some small amount so we can keep tracking you.

Submission is "Welcome to the Google Privacy Policy", Google's privacy page.