More than 50 companies, including Privacy International, Digital Rights Foundation, DuckDuckGo and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote an open letter to Google's CEO Sundar Pichai. The authors of the letter note that pre-installed software on Android poses a privacy risk to consumers.
All Android OEMs pre-install their devices with apps that cannot be uninstalled and may bypass the Android permission model. This allows them to access the microphone, camera and location without user intervention. This has led to many smartphone manufacturers collecting user data without their explicit permission and using it for their own benefit.
The authors of the letter demand that Google should not certify a device if it finds that the OEM is trying to exploit the privacy of users and their data.
Source: linux.org.ru