A developer started a petition to stop Google from limiting app installation on Android devices unless developers provide personal identity documents.
Even though Google has not revoked similar controversial policies in the past, we do our best as much as we can. This change particularly threatens the freedom to build, share, and use software without giving away sensitive personal information. It affects independent developers, FOSS contributors, and even regular users who want to install apps outside of Google Play.
``Just imagine giving sensitive personal, government-issued ID to a corporation to install an app outside Google Play``
Let’s stand together to protect our freedom to create and use software without handing over personal information to a corporation. Every signature, share, and voice counts here
Support the petition here: https://chng.it/MsHzSXtJnw
An open letter from the lead developers and decision makers of top-rated apps in the Play Store would be useful. But that takes work, unlike an online petition.
What do I need to do to make a difference, and how much time will this take?
[My elected officials listen, what's the path? Legislation?]
EU or US?
> what's the path? Legislation?
Send them a letter explaining why this is bad for you. Keep it strictly factual and ideally concise. Copy Google’s legal [1] and any relevant digital or markets regulators. (If in the US, don’t forget your state regulators.)
Wait two weeks and then call the elected. Make sure they’re aware, and talk through your options. Send a letter thanking them for the call, incorporating any new information and actions they said they would take, and copy all of the previous parties again.
More work: reach out to other top developers and organise an open letter. This will be hard because everyone wants to include their pet issue and everyone will fight over scope and language.
[1] https://support.google.com/faqs/answer/6151275?hl=en
If you want to make a difference, try to communicate with someone from OEM companies. Google is making their phones inferior and they'll loose money and market share because of it.
After this change, "I can install NewPipe and Ad blockers" will become a major selling point for Chinese phones among large and profitable segments of the population. And that high-end manufacturers might as well give up and let Apple take that part of the market. If OEMs can be made to understand that, that's going to be the end of this initiative.
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A lot of governments want to use American AI systems to run things to cut costs.
Someone will need to collect the necessary resources to bring the fight to the courts, though.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfN3UQeNspQsZCO2ITk...
Petitions from verified voters are powerful. Triply so if done in person, because the infrastructure that can collect signatures in person can also e.g. back a primary challenge or plebiscite.
And the vast majority of their awareness actually came from a failed counter-campaign by the opposition.
> …with Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs praising it for providing a “balanced approach” that protects users while keeping Android open.
> …Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society sees it as a “positive and proactive measure” that aligns with their national digital safety policies.
> In Brazil, the Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN) sees it as a “significant advancement in protecting users and encouraging accountability.”
I'd be curious to know, if it was because they never asked for one or because they never got one?
(I agree with some other threads that merely signing a random petition is not a punch to the face. That's just whining. Systematic and organized, perhaps, but just whining.)
I have the feeling that these companies don't need nerds anymore. Who needs pioneers if everything is paved and regulated?
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But I reckon we can all make an educated guess that they did anticipate negative feedback.
So, I believe that if they decided this is the path they want to take - they will find one way or another. It's not that resistance is futile (it's not!) but I believe that petitions are not a good tool for the case.
...No. Giving them the loud protest they deserve is the bare minimum
But in this particular case, they knew exactly and in advance that developers won't like the change, hence why I believe that in this particular case whining won't dent a thing.
Google pay fealty to Trump, who is going in to bat for consumers over this when they won't even protect the constitution or rule of law?
Dead Comment
It's great to see that some more people who were previously complacent are outraged about this move. But let's look back a bit:
In the early 1990s, Linus Torvalds started writing an OS kernel for 386-class PCs. He didn't need the approval of some corporation to allow him to run code on his own machine, or distribute it for others to run on theirs. The code didn't have to run as an "app" in some restricted sandbox under Microsoft's OS (not that back then, DOS or Windows were even in any way locked down the way modern operating systems are). Documentation for all the "standard" hardware like video, keyboard, hard disks, etc. was openly available, so it didn't have to rely on proprietary drivers.
This is how it was at one time, and what should have remained the standard today, but instead it's turned into some utopian dream that those who grew up with "smart" devices can't even conceive as possible anymore.
Google has taken what became of this code, and turned it into an "open" system that is pretty much designed to track every aspect of people's lives in order to more effectively target them with psychological manipulation, which is what advertisements really are. And you're not really getting "free stuff" in return for this invasion either, since pretty much everything you buy includes a hidden "tax" that goes to support this massive industry.
"A supercomputer in everyone's pocket"? Yes, but it's not yours, nor can you even know what it does. Even the source code that is available is millions of lines that you couldn't inspect in all your lifetime. Online 24/7, with GPS tracking your every move and a microphone that listens to what you say. Every URL you visit is logged. Your photos uploaded to "the cloud" and used to train AI.
The only solution is to no longer accept any of this, even if almost everyone else does. Even if it means giving up some convenience.
Google has to be destroyed.
Apple too, they're the ones who normalized smartphones.
I know it's hard to remember today, but in 2007, Apple was still the perennially-"beleaguered" underdog whose only big success story in marketshare terms was the iPod.
If the public had not loved the iPhone, it never could have "normalized" anything.
There are definitely aspects of the iPhone that it is fair to criticize Apple for. The rest of the world's wholesale embrace of its design—to the point of slavishly copying it, for several manufacturers at different points in time—can only be blamed on their lack of imagination and willingness to take risks, and on the public's unwillingness to give up the benefits of the iPhone just to get the much-less-obvious benefits of something more "open" or different.
20 years in, the so-called "smartphone" duopoly have jointly converged towards a "dumb terminal" strategy, where almost nothing can be done without cloud-based authentication from a centralized third party. And this was the case prior to the AI horse manure they're baking into the OS.
I use the Fossify forks of Simple Mobile Tools apps (Gallery, File Manager, Calculator) because these can be installed via APK files and just be left alone. My Google Calculator app on the other hand seems to want to download new updates every single month.
AOSP / Graphene, or the equivalent of linux on a smartphone would be a better chance, but first and foremost you need hardware support. Something is happening like eos, pinephone and the like but we are a long, long way toward that goal.
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I'm so excited that I might even jump back into open source development to make a new OS that isn't as bloated and slow as Android. There is a need for an OS that only gives you minimum capabilities, to run on cheaper, simpler, smaller devices. I would love to help make that a reality.