EFF criticizes Google for removing 'vital privacy feature' with Android 4.4.2

December 13, 2013

The Android 4.4.2 update that began to roll out Monday to Google’s Nexus devices, such as the Nexus 10, above, removed a feature that gave users fine-grained control over app permissions, prompting criticism from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The removed feature was called App Ops and was introduced in Android 4.3. It provided an interface from where users could withdraw permissions they gave apps when installing them. Traditionally, Android users have had to choose between giving an app all permissions it requests or not use it. The granular permission control provided by App Ops is something that privacy advocates had long requested, since many apps ask for more permissions than they need to provide their main functionality. In part this is because a lot of apps, especially free ones, bundle advertising libraries that provide a revenue stream for developers. Often the excessive permissions requested by such apps come from those ad libraries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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