I am sincerely not trying to be flippant, but can you just opt out then? I've set up a lot of Android phones, so I know that the entirety location services is explained with a clear opportunity to opt out at setup (plus, of course, you can always change your answer).

And in maps specifically, there is incredibly fine grained control over location history (controlled per device), you can retroactively delete location history individually or over entire time ranges. Plus you can control all of the individual notification types (e.g. disallow questions about your experience at restaurants you have visited).

Because honestly, so long as I retain the ability to decide when and if, this is the future I and others want.

I would prefer opt-in.

Fair point, although I suspect the counterargument centers around the reduction in participation in an opt-in system.

I wonder if something like a global "privacy" toggle could work -- a way to indicate what your own personal preferences for default behavior are. Apps would default sensitive features to the global toggle, while allowing specific overrides in either direction.

> Fair point, although I suspect the counterargument centers around the reduction in participation in an opt-in system.

That's not a counter-argument, that's whining that you can't have everything you want without deceptive practices.

Then every time you:

    1. Install something
    2. Uninstall something
    3. Open Chrome
    4. Open Any other Google App
    5. Turn GPS on
    6. Turn GPS off

expect a nag requesting permission to track you. See, now, to get the nags to go away, you gave up your rights. But you know, you "gave permission"...

Isn't it already opt-in? iirc you're always presented a screen asking you if you want to enable location history.

I think (s)he's right in pointing out that while location services as a whole has an initial prompt (I believe the default value is on, but you do have an opportunity to change it), the individual features in e.g. maps are default opt-in after install (and you have to navigate settings to turn them off).

But do you appreciate the dozens of honest reviews that were provided by other patrons?

The way to ensure that future isn't where we're going is to buy a phone from someone else. Sure, you can disable some of Google's tracking features, but they pretty much cripple your device if you do. (For instance, if you don't let them track you in the cloud, they won't even locally save your previously searched locations on the device, which is a pain.)

I tried to get along with a privacy-set Android for a while, but the reality is that Android is designed for one thing and one thing only: Data collection.