It’s supposed to be outside the scale, like a fuel gauge before you start the car. Which I agree is not great, but I can see what they were going for.

Equating photo backup, something that needs to be turned on and only uploads media you create, from folders you choose, to North Korean government taking a hidden screenshot of your screen every 5 seconds, is a gigantic stretch.

Definitely don’t use Google Photos, Google can’t be trusted with your photos. But wow these are completely different things.

What I’m seeing, is that:

• it doesn’t log all your touches, but some actions in some apps
• not on any Android device, but some device categories like smartphones
• only on those with Google services (no China devices for example)
• only with a Google account logged in
• only when that account has that feature turned on

That’s already very far from every Android device, let alone every touch.

Yeah, good stuff to tell people about!

But “Google is tracking your every touch on any Android device” is very different from “Google saves a history of your Google searches, and some major actions in some Google apps”.

I absolutely agree with you. What I’m arguing against is baseless FUD without any specifics, any sources, any details, and making extraodinary claims without extraordinary evidence. I didn’t mean that the type of tracking is ridiculous, what I’m saying is ridiculous is the claim that Google is collecting the logs of EVERY touch on EVERY Android device. Does that claim even needs to be disproven?

• Is that happening on Chinese Android phones without any Google services?
• Is that happening on AOSP phones without Google services?
• Is that happening on GrapheneOS, on other custom ROMs?
• Is that happening on my washing machine that for some reason runs Android?
• Is that baked into the system? From which Android version? In a particular system app? Where can I see these logs of all touches for myself?

It is patently obvious it cannot be happening on EVERY Android device. And I’d welcome evidence that it’s happening on even a SINGLE one. But I don’t see it. Because it’s made up hyperbole that’s poisoning the discussion of real tracking.

Because your touches are tracked. But not system-wide, but in individual apps, by the individual developers, most of whom don’t share the data with Google, only if you use these apps, and each developer can only track what’s happening in their own app. Which is worth talking about, but it’s hard when people are just making stuff up.

Yes, I’m sure he’s angry people are diluting the invigilation he exposed by coming up with fake ones all the time, and making people think it’s not worth fighting it anymore.

Do you have something constructive to say? Did you read an interesting article about a new type of tracking by a security researcher? Maybe you ran your own network capture and found something previously unknown? Great, let’s share that and learn how to block it.

Do you just wave your hands around and say that Google knows everything about you at all times using all Android devices, through unspecified means based on your gut feeling? Then that’s not constructive and is just spreading helplessness.

Oh Google logs and collect all taps on the screen? I’d love to know through which system service that happens, how the data leaves the device, to which servers is it going, which devices are affected by this, and how we can disable it. Oh you made it up and actually there are no details? Right.

Yes, Google’s code processes every touch, they wrote Android after all, so you are technically correct.

Is it all being sent somewhere from every Android device? Of course not, that’s ridiculous. Individual apps might have various levels of usage analytics though.