Over 50 companies, including Privacy International, Digital Rights Foundation, DuckDuckGo, and Electronic Frontier Foundation, have issued an open letter to Google's CEO Sundar Pichai. The authors of the letter note that pre-installed software on Android poses a privacy threat to consumers.
All OEM manufacturers of Android pre-install their devices with applications that cannot be removed and that may bypass the Android permission model. This allows them to access the microphone, camera, and location without the user's intervention. As a result, many smartphone manufacturers collect user data without explicit consent and use it for their own purposes.
The authors of the letter demand that Google should not certify a device if it finds that the OEM manufacturer is attempting to exploit users' privacy and data.
Kilde: linux.org.ru
