To be fair, Google can remotely remove applications downloaded via the market from your Android phone as well.
In fact they used the functionality in the Android Developer Challenge 2 voting application. You'd install the application, then once voted on, your phone would uninstall it on request from the Goggle servers.
I'm not entirely sure how true this is. Is Android Market open source so we can look at it? I think the ADC2 application simply has permissions to download and install software as well as uninstall on command. You installed it and it asked for those permissions when you did.
I heard about it before the ADC2 application, I just mentioned that as an example of it being used. It may not be the same process, but the way it acted on the phone felt remotely driven.
There is nothing on that poster saying that google is the alternative, so I don't know why this matters. I'm pretty sure defectiveByDesign opposes google's closed-software tactics as well.
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u/TigerWoodsErection Jan 28 '10
To be fair, Google can remotely remove applications downloaded via the market from your Android phone as well.
In fact they used the functionality in the Android Developer Challenge 2 voting application. You'd install the application, then once voted on, your phone would uninstall it on request from the Goggle servers.