LXer: Millions of Android users 'deceived' by flashlight app that shares location with advertisers
 

Published at LXer:

Brightest Flashlight Free, available in the Google Play store, has been downloaded over 50 million times, but a complaint from the FTC reveals that the seemingly innocent app transmits “precise location” data to third-party advertisers alongside a unique device identifier.

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Duhhhhh!

EVERY application asks for every permission under the sun. Why doesn't google stop this? Pffsst nsa, what about google and the cell phone carriers and crooks?

This is one reason I don't load up my phone with lots of apps and why I always read the permission requests.

If in doubt, I leave it out until I can learn more about it.

I also keep my GPS turned off unless I want to use it, as when I take a bike ride and want to track it with Move! Bike Computer, which appears to be quite well-behaved, then I turn it off when I'm done.

(I took a lot at one bike tracking app that wanted access to my contacts, for Pete's sake! There could have been no honorable reason for that.)

Their use as a communications device is only a secondary function of these personal advertising and total surveillance information gathering devices.

I choose not to have one.

Every application that installed so far on my phone has told me specifically which rights it needs on the phone before the actual installation. If I see a flashlight application that wants to have rights that aren't needed by this type of application I won't install it.
Simple as that, why does it seem that common sense is deactivated by so many people once they touch their phone?
I don't blame Google for that and I do not blame the developers (they could have done a better job, though).
I do blame the users for installing an app that needs rights that are in no way related to its functions. People, start using your brain!

I blame Google completely for this kind of thing. There is no earthly reason not to let a user decide what permissions an application has at install time or even run time. Just giving the options "allow access to all my personal data" or "don't install" is silly and is conditioning users into saying "yes" to everything.
It's one of the reasons why I am in two minds whether to bother with Android when I next buy a phone -- my old Symbian device seems perfectly able to give this kind of functionality so it makes me think Google want developers to do this.

Google excludes anything that can make money off of marketeers and advertisers from its definition of "evil."

I agree..But what are the prior methods of it? I just ponder about it's effects and functions too...