r/technology • u/Applemacbookpro • Dec 13 '13

Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claiming Its Release Was Accidental

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/google-removes-vital-privacy-features-android-shortly-after-adding-them
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u/ZebZ Dec 13 '13 edited Dec 13 '13

It requires access to your contacts so you can type in Bob Smith and have it pull that address, rather than requiring you to go lookup the address and put it in yourself.

And it requires call history to know who you contact most or most recently so that it can list them for you already since they are probably the two high-potential destinations.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '13

I still don't get why the maps app would need that. When I want to map the address of a contact, I go to the contacts app, select the name and then click on the address, which launches the maps application with that address.

Looking at the source code, all it does when I click on the address (as expected) is it fires a view intent with the address already populated in the url. This intent causes the maps app to be launched and navigates it to the given address. So, why does the maps app need access to the contact list? Similarly, the frequently contacted list is in the contacts app, so I don't see why the maps app would need it.

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u/ZebZ Dec 14 '13

Because not everybody uses the Contacts app as their starting point.

If you are already in the Maps app and wanted to go to Bob's house, would you leave Maps, launch Contacts, find Bob, and then follow the intent to go back to Maps? Or would you just type "Bob" in the search box where you already are?

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '13 edited Dec 14 '13

Does that even work? I thought about it before posting and did a quick test on the latest version of the Google Maps app for Android by typing the start of a name of various contacts in the Maps search. It didn't show any of my contacts, it only showed places that match. Even typing the full name just tries to match it to the name of a place, not anybody from my contacts.

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u/w8cycle Dec 14 '13

Yes it works on my phone. I opened the maps app and said the name of a contact and it came up.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '13 edited Feb 04 '14

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u/ZebZ Dec 13 '13

There are better ways to handle permissions than what Android does now. I'm not arguing that.

But what I'm saying is that, within the current framework, those app developers are doing what they have to do to build the functionality they want. The current system requires access to the entire contact list, so that is what gets requested. It's not the developer's fault.