"weeks" means "since the winter solstice when everyone goes on vacation and no one deploys new releases.

The article says they have deployed several Android releases during this time.

Having said that, I agree that the article may be bullshit, hence my question.

I had a similar thought, but December 7th was indeed the last date that new versions were pushed to the App Store for Chat, Drive, Keep, Meet, etc.

My guess: In addition to the general notion that Google relies on their largely good public opinion that they are good at privacy and safety, I'm willing to bet Google may be very uncomfortable admitting their data usage on legally-sensitive products like Google Classroom, which include usage by users under 13.

Facebook is, at the end of the day, a single social network app. Google operates a lot of platforms which are fundamental to people of all ages and for various businesses who all may have legal concerns with their data abuses if they were aware of their full extent.

There is no way Google is violating COPPA. It may be collecting a lot of data from students, but I doubt they are actively violating the law (or that their legal department would let them do so at the risk of losing almost all of their cloud and educational business).

The attorney general of New Mexico believes otherwise: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/20/21145698/google-student-p... (Actually two separate ongoing cases are discussed here.)

Here's another suit from Illinois, both regarding COPPA and the Illinois BIPA: https://www.cnet.com/news/two-children-sue-google-for-allege...

There's more, mind you, but suffice to say, every school who is using the Classroom platform is going to be dealing with a lot of angry parents soon.

That's not a reason for the company to stop releasing new versions of their apps forever.

If a company is willing to break the law and its contracts (which I severely doubt is happening) I don't think Apple's privacy label is going to scare them.