iOS led the way on these privacy features if I recall someone correct me if I’m wrong, Android implemented them after apple forced the industry to expect a focus on privacy.

Why would google be incentivized to collect less data of their users that can be monetized and profile them if no laws compelled them?

It’s their default mode of operation and I’ve been a hardcore android user since I laid my hands on an android G1, through G2 and then onto the Nexus and Pixel “vanilla” android lines.

I feel like privacy on Android can be summed up as “no we wouldn’t spy on you! Trust us, wink wink. Oh hey, we turned on location tracking across all your google accounts and web activity, and maps, and gmail, and drive, and search… yeah it’s to improve your product experience, yeah… BTW you must agree to these terms to save places in google maps!”

> iOS led the way on these privacy features if I recall someone correct me if I’m wrong, Android implemented them after apple forced the industry to expect a focus on privacy.

At least iOS implemented the user facing interface first and AOSP/Google might have only implemented it because iOS did (we cannot know, but I wouldn't be surprised). However technically the API was already there and was usable by external permission managers long before iOS exposed users to it.

> Why would google be incentivized to collect less data of their users that can be monetized and profile them if no laws compelled them?

NOBUS. It also applies here, since Google's Services are installed in /system it has access to everything and other apps have to go through the hoops that Google can avoid.

> I feel like privacy on Android can be summed up as “no we wouldn’t spy on you! Trust us, wink wink. Oh hey, we turned on location tracking across all your google accounts and web activity, and maps, and gmail, and drive, and search… yeah it’s to improve your product experience, yeah… BTW you must agree to these terms to save places in google maps!”

It's not a big secret that Google is collecting data. Don't use Google products if you can help it. However what happens on Android with Google Apps preinstalled (basically every Stock experience) while using other apps/sites is more of a problem in my opinion.

There where ways to have all of this long before either normal Android or iOS had it.

By rooting your phone you could setup combinations of special firewall, and GPS spoofing rules. Which is more privacy preserving then forbidding GPS in some situations.

All with Apps setting things up for you with reasonable UX.

This is a good example why closed eco systems (Apple) or semi-closed eco systems (Google,1) are a problem.

(1): Many essential Apps stop working on de-googled or even "just" rooted Android phones, so it's still semi-closed wrt. this aspects.

> There where ways to have all of this long before either normal Android or iOS had it.

Do you mean something like PDroid or XPrivacy? Yeah that was indeed pretty awesome, however these already used underlying APIs that were the precursor to permission management. If I recall correctly the first inofficial permission manager was in AOSP Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean). It was however not that useful compared to the alternatives and also hard to access if at all.

As a sidenote: PDroid is still my gold standard. It was annoying to install, but it worked really well.

> iOS led the way on these privacy features if I recall someone correct me if I’m wrong, Android implemented them after apple forced the industry to expect a focus on privacy.

> Why would google be incentivized to collect less data of their users that can be monetized and profile them if no laws compelled them?

Doesn't your first paragraph answer your second?

Btw, I found it much easier to install an ad-blocker for web browsing on Android (in Firefox) than in iOS. Since browser extensions are a big no-no in iOS, I think?

Yeah, I've had similar problems with ad-blockers for iOS, but they do exist.

From what I've heard people install browsers with ad-blockers pre-configured to get around Apple's limitations?

I just wanted uBlock Origin that I already know and like.

It's a shame Google doesn't do extensions for Chrome on Android.

That's one possibility, but you can also download apps that block ads across all apps. I'm not sure how they work.

> Why would google be incentivized to collect less data of their users that can be monetized and profile them if no laws compelled them?

Google has a natural incentive to do the same thing even if Apple never existed. This is about third parties being able to collect your location data, which diminishes the value of that data to Google.

You are wrong, Symbian had them first, but it became fashionable to ignore the mobile world before iPhone came into this world.

On my Android 12 phone, there is a switch to turn off the Precise Location, but every single app refuses to run with it disabled. Canon PRINT app, for example (WTF!).

Bluetooth scanning is gated behind location permission(s). Though AFAIK communicating with an already-paired device and deferring to the OS for scanning/choosing a device to pair with doesn't require the location permission.

Importantly as well, turning off precise location does not prevent that data from going to Google -- it merely prevents it from going to 3rd party applications.