They Talk Behind Our Backs, Part II

More of the same...

Ever got those Shopping Helper mails from Newegg that you get shortly after you search for something, but don't buy it? Well...

Last couple of days I've been actively researching all things BeagleBoard.

And guess what, I get a "Shopping Helper" message from Newegg telling me about best selling motherboards... Haven't been on Newegg for ages, and, for sure, haven't had even a fleeting interest in buying one there.

So, how did the information about me searching for *board on Google get to Newegg? I guess I'll never find out. But I get shivers down my spine already.

The Weather Channel: Who Do You Think You Are?

Let's take a brief look at permissions The Weather Channel application requests.

• Services that cost you money: Send SMS messages - Who is the application going to send SMS messages to?
• Services that cost you money: Directly call phone numbers - What numbers is it going to call?
• Your location: Coarse (network-based) location - All right, I understand it wants to know where I am to tell me what the weather is.
• Your location: Fine (GPS) location - Why does it want my exact location? Oh, I see, to show me ads. Thanks, but no thanks, you guys can easily do the same using just coarse GPS location.
• Your personal information: Add or modify calendar events and send email to guests - What? Excuse me? Why would Weather Channel want to intrude into my calendar, and, worse, send emails to guests?
• Your personal information: Read calendar events - This one even seems benign in light of the previous one, but still - why?
• Storage: Modify/delete USB storage contents, modify/delete SD card contents - Again - why? I can guess that it wants to cache data, but surely not as much that it requires special permissions to USB storage and SD card?

Note that the detailed explanation of why these permissions are required is not available from the developer (at least as of the moment of writing).

Summary

The Weather Channel application requests unreasonably wide permissions with no justification to do so. If you value your privacy, you should never install it, or uninstall it right away if you did install it in the past (when permission set was more reasonable) and forgot to check permissions as updates were coming.

Corollary

The Weather Channel is not the only application abusing permissions. Android core development team must come up with a way for the end user to selectively deny permissions requested by an application, so the end user doesn't fall prey to sloppy or malicious applications. There is some progress, but the definite answer from Google is not available - I wonder if there is a collusion between Google and big players in Android Market, just like there seems to be one with YouTube upload manipulation.

They Talk Behind Our Backs

Bought a set of scotch glasses from Crate & Barrel yesterday - lo and behold, within 12 hours Amazon sends me further ads for Riedel glassware...

UPDATE: It gets better.

Conspiracy Theory: Google Bending Over For Corporations

Well, not much of a theory - the facts line up pretty straight.

Take a look at earlier ones covered here.

Now, GMail goes offline. And Gears installer runs smack dab into... inability to cope with a proxy that requires authentication.

What?

Almighty Google can't make its programmers create a dialog box that asks for proxy username and password? 407 Proxy Authentication Required is too complicated?

Apparently so.

There were others before - Google Pack, Chrome. The feature's been requested, most probably more than once. It is trivial to implement (and please clue me in on certain security changes in Microsoft Windows that make it so difficult).


The stench is becoming tangible.

Conspiracy Theory: No VOIP For Mobile Devices

Just like I was saying, it appears there's a conspiracy preventing you from using your mobile device to carry VOIP traffic.

Skype has just announced their mobile application, and guess what, unlike regular Skype, you can not make VOIP calls on it.

Skype-to-anything-else rates are not that great. The only reason to use Skype (for me) is to utilize free VOIP. The Skype Mobile App is not providing that ability.

Moreover, not only they don't have VOIP, they both a) consume airtime minutes *and* b) charge you the Skype call rates.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Seems that we're screwed. The only way VOIP on mobile is happening is Open Source, and even then buckle up for mobile traffic capping.

Conspiracy Theory: UMA Will Die

Along the same lines as the conspiracy theory about absence of Google Talk on G1 -

Fact #1: mobile carriers charge customers for airtime.
Fact #2: UMA allows customers to talk using a WiFi connection (sometimes a flat fee is involved).
Fact #3: this strips mobile carriers from airtime revenue that could otherwise be produced.
Speculation #1: Carriers offering unlimited UMA calling on a flat fee basis realized, to their dismay, that a lot of people use it a lot.

Corollary: UMA will be a feature that is offered less and less in the future, until it disappears completely.

G1 may have been the harbinger.

Conspiracy Theory: There Will Be No Google Talk for Android

Not that it's non-obvious, just didn't stop to think about it until now...

Fact #1: mobile carriers charge customers for airtime.
Fact #2: Google Talk uses data channel to transfer voice.

Corollary: Google Talk jeopardizes carrier's business model, and puts a strain on their data channel capacity. This can't make carriers happy.

Corollary 2: There will be no Google Talk for Android.

So if you're developing your own VOIP application, now is a time to rejoice and have a second breath - the first to get to the market share hits the jackpot.

UPDATE: See the UMA conspiracy theory.