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Comment by acdha | Hacker News Reader

So the requirement is to pass the phone’s system validation process rather than having a Google account. I don’t love that but I can understand why they don’t want to pay the bill for the otherwise ubiquitous bots, and it’s why it’s an Android-specific issue.

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You can make a very rational case for each privacy invasive technical decision ever made.

In the end, the fact remain: no chatgpt app without giving up your privacy, to google none the less.

“Giving up your privacy” is a pretty sweeping claim – it sounds like you’re saying that Android inherently leaks private data to Google, which is broader than even Apple fans tend to say.

A person who was maximally distrustful of Google would assume they link your phone and your IP through the connection used to receive push notifications, and the wifi-network-visibility-to-location API, and the software update checker, and the DNS over HTTPS, and suchlike. As a US company, they could even be forced to do this in secret against their will, and lie about it.

Of course as Google doesn't claim they do this, many people would consider it unreasonably fearful/cynical.

Sure, but that says you shouldn’t have a phone, not that ChatGPT is forcing you to give up your privacy.

> it sounds like you’re saying that Android inherently leaks private data to Google, which is broader than even Apple fans tend to say.

Yes? I mean, not "leaks" - it's designed to upload your private data to Google and others.

https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/study-reveals-scale-...

> Even when minimally configured and the handset is idle, with the notable exception of e/OS, these vendor-customised Android variants transmit substantial amounts of information to the OS developer and to third parties such as Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Facebook that have pre-installed system apps. There is no opt-out from this data collection.

Google and Apple were both part of the PRISM program, of course I'm making this claim.

That's the opposite stance that would be bonkers.

PRISM covered communications through U.S. company’s servers. It was not a magic back door giving them access to your device’s local data, and even if you did believe that it was the answer would be not using a phone. A major intelligence agency does not need you to have a Google account so they can spy on you.

Forest for the tree.

Google and Apple are both heavily invested in ads (apple made 4.7 billion from ads in 2022), they have a track record of exfiltrating your data (remember contractors listening to your siri recordings?), of lying to the customers (remember the home button scandal on iPhone?), have control over a device that have your whole life yet runs partially on code you can't evaluate.

Trusting those people makes no sense at all. You have a business relationship with them, that's it.

It’s interesting how each time you say something which isn’t accurate you try to distract by changing the topic.

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