That behavior doesn't require Google to have associated your phone number with your account; the mapping could be happening entirely on your friend's phone.
Considering how much Google tracks, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't save that mapping somewhere besides my friend's phone because this is exactly the kind of data aggregation and mapping which is driving large parts of Google's ad business.
I admit this might just be paranoia, tho this wouldn't be the first time my paranoia ended up being justified.
The photo being private is most likely not what you think :)
No offense to moustache lovers, it just didn't suit me well.
Where I found it I don't remember because it was some Google site that I hadn't signed up for. I know, they're all connected, but I didn't even know it existed, much less that personal photos could go there.
My frustration comes from the fact that I had already visited several timesevery configuration and options page of the products that I use, choosing not to share anything anywhere with anyone and, god forbid, never backup phone and still it got there.
I have an idea why it could happen: a combination of "sync" option in the phone being activated by an accidental click with a lot of "creativity" in Google's part.
I'm done with this shit. When the time comes to buy a new phone, I will take some drastic measures. Maybe a dumbphone with tethering paired with a tablet, I'm not sure, but not this again.
As a user, I'd rather have not only a name but also a picture of a person pop up when they call me, and I'd rather it happen with as little work as possible on my part.
(disclaimer: I work for Google, although I had nothing to do with how this works)
But Google used OP's friend's phone, bought from them, to surreptitiously acquire the connection between his email address and phone number.
That was against OP's desire, and his friend never explicitly agreed to provide that information. I fully understand why he would be upset.
This is how cloud services work. Google stores the friend's contact data, which has a contact with both freeflight's phone number and email address.
What is it you fear that Google is doing with this information? And what would it take for you to be comfortable?
> what would it take for you to be comfortable?
Not OP, but: it would take for cloud services not to work this way. Regardless of whether Google is going to do anything with this data, the fact that tech-literate people aren't able to prevent just this from happening even when trying really hard makes one wonder how any one could avoid anything.
For example, click, view, watch, like at random ads and if enough people do this inference will be harder.
The phone automatically connected the mail address to my Google account and now every time I call him the (anonymous) picture of my Google profile shows up on his phone. Which I guess means that Google now also connected that phone number to the mail address/Google account.
Tbh that's really offputting: You can be as careful as you want and it will still be all for naught because friends&family just end up leaking your details everywhere without even noticing it.