From a technical standpoint, it is the same. The phone maintains a connection to a Google server and listens for "authorized" installation requests - where "authorized" means "authorized by Google". When you click "install" on the Play Store on your laptop, you're not talking directly to your phone (how would that even work?) - you're talking to Google, who then speaks to your phone on your behalf.

> From a technical standpoint, it is the same.

Yes, of course, but this isn't a technical issue. Look at the webpage that this hn page references. When people say, "an app was installed on my device without my consent or knowledge," the exact method the device used to listen isn't important.

The first issue is that Google software allows non-authorized software installations. The second issue is that a government forced the installation of the app. The technical specifics are just implementation details.

This subthread is about the technical issue. The root comment asks "the real question is what mechanism allows them to push a random app to some phones?".

From what you've written, it appears that you are guessing as to the implementation details that correspond to the mechanism for pushing random apps to phone, which is in this case means un-authenticated apps. There may be an entirely different method used than the standard push method from selecting an app on the website.

it could work with google cloud providing oauth and the phone verifying it's the same account.