Essentially, showing fake data to the app if you pick this (eg: no photos, fake contacts, etc).
AFAIK, there are some android apps (and cyanogen) that add this features, but it really needs to be worked on upstream.
This is doubly useful for google, since they can always keep their own apps as "superprivilidged" on google-sponsored phones.
The weird thing is, it does. Or, rather, it's hidden-in-the-box. There's an app called App Ops that can be enabled if you have root access that limits permissions to installed apps - I'm actually not sure if it sends fake data instead but I'm yet to have an app crash from it. But without root it's not usable. Sigh.
Older apps targeting older API levels will receive fake data, whereas newer apps will be able to know whether they were actually granted the permission or not.
This would prevent apps (and app developers) from being left in the dark, and would also kill the "all or nothing" permissions model currently in place.
Nah.
I use AFWall+ and CyanogenMod's Privacy Guard to control everything, but it's sad that the data of most people I know may be stolen without their knowledge after they install yet another Subway Surfers-type game or "vintage photo effects" app.
People would use it all the time, and then complain that the app doesn't work.
The actual problem is the "all or nothing" security model that needs to be replaced with contextual permissions (like "This app wants to access your photos right now. Allow?", see iOS).
The "all or nothing" model defeats its own purpose by effectively leaving no choice for the user.
Though I agree, taking business elsewhere is a better response to this kind of privacy-invasion. (And Google should shoulder a ton of the blame here, as they not only allow but encourage this kind of shit.)
The permissions demanded by android apps have moved from alarming to out and out clownish.
Imagine consenting to this:
"modify or delete the contents of your USB storage"
they are asking you to backdoor your own device.
* Android does not let you selectively grant permissions (unlike iOS)
* Android expects you to give an app all permissions at once at install time, carte blanche (unlike iOS)
* Doing certain very basic things often requires a broad permission - for example, checking if music is playing so the app can mute itself? "Read phone state" - which includes the phone number you're calling
* Google are actively making this worse by making Android permissions broader on Google Play - rather than accept something very specific, you now accept an entire category!
Amazon India is certainly a serious threat to them. On a closed platform (like that of Android which is major in India) they probably have a lot more control and tracking (as someone mentioned it above). I guess it would make a lot of sense for FK to tap the naivete of Indian market and pull them all away from the web.
It's all politics written all over it!
They have already stopped supporting the mobile website, and it simply instructs you to download the app to continue.
This is the moment I have completely stopped using flipkart and moved to amazon.in
I like website more than app, both gets the job done, where as In an mobile app I have to give various permission which is not required for a simple E-Commerce website (which suggest the are just doing it for the data)
See the list of permission used by the app below.