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Motorola/Lenova - miss behaving.

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paulca:
So my Moto Edge 30 upgraded on Monday.

An un-dismissable notification appeared to "Setup my upgraded device".

On opening this notification it presented me with:

"By continuing to use this service you accept out terms and conditions and privacy policy"
"CONTINUE"

No, "Dimiss", no, "I do not accept.", just continue.

I closed the app.  The notification stayed.  Wednesday the notification was still there.  So I contacted Motorola and put it to them politely.  "Get it off my device or I will return it for a full refund."

They claimed they had to ask for EU GDPR compliance.  They also said, "unfortunately it's something that happens when you have a smart device, we have to accept these terms and continditions to continue using our devices."

My response was that I am well versed in GDPR and I will be forwarding your response to the data commissionor as evidence that you do not understand GDPR, consent and you are trying to FORCE people to accept the T&C.  That will not end well.

However, before they got to reply to me, I took matters into my own hand.  I stop, disabled and removed all Motorola bloatware, spyware, "software" from the device and disbaled/blocked it from ever running again.

I lost my clock, booohooo.  The android default looks better.

These companies are finally finding people have limits.  People are getting more and more clued up on these things.  "User acceptance" to the tracking and tracing is falling rapidly.

JPortici:
Now do that with a Xiaomi device :( not only it's virtually impossible to remove all the crap, but to get to the bootloader to flash another ROM you have to have a sim card inserted, register with a whole lot of personal info to their site, request a temporary unlock of the bootloader, hope it's granted (it can take up to 30 days according to the terms i read), then you can install the new rom. But the bootloader won't stay unlocked forever.
I wanted to flash Lineage to make my spare phone useful again (at each update they worsen the camera quality, remove some functionality here and there, reduce battery life because there is more crap active 24/7 that you can't remove)

paulca:
I haven't completely de-jailed the phone from being a Motorola phone.  However the new Android allows you to kill and disable the ROM installed software.  It prevents it running or updating.

It would seem that not even Google are interested in letting them away with it....  but then again, Google have ulterior motives too.

While we are on the subject of data on devices.  I was rather disturbed, no, alarmed, that the data from my Smart watch bio-sensors is not available to users via the device API.  The raw untouched sensor values can be got with hacky APKs, but the actual functionally filtered and processed data is encrypted and uploaded to the cloud without you being able to access it.

To access your own biomteric data you have to use the "MobVoi" fitness app or Google fitness.  I think you can install plugins for other vendors, but the process by which you get that access into the google APIs is not available to normal API users.  EDIT:  You can see some logic in it if you think about it from a business persepctive.  All that sensor processing IP which goes into the very competitive market for smart fitness trackers is going to cost a small fortune to develop and certify/medically endorse.  If they aren't going to be able to mine and sell your biometrics data to their customers they have no stream for revenue from you, so they won't provide you access to the data. 

You can do a cloud dump, but at that stage it's been reduced to very low resolution and is already highly aggregated and filtered.  For the use case below this wont work, the roundtrip time for my "Is asleep" to been seen on the watch until when I could API fetch it from teh google cloud with Google Takeouts, parse it etc...  hours probably,  it would make the automation pointless.

I found this out when I wanted to write an MQTT notifier for the phone to tell the house when I went to sleep.

Rick Law:
We view the phone we paid for with our own money as our own property and under our own control.  The phone makers clearly disagree.

Besides Moto and Lenova (and Xiaomi), Samsung isn't any better either.  The Samsung S9 also has an irremovable boot loader lock.  So de-branding or loading a different boot OS is not an option.  My AT&T branded S9 has this Samsung's Bixby app (and other apps) that I can't disable or uninstall.  I have no interest in what Bixby has to offer, nor do I want to set up a Samsung account.  With it constantly bugging me to "set up Bixby", I ended up leaving the phone OFF and put it in the far end of the drawer.

And then of course Apple and Google collects whatever they want to collect about you.

Even flip phones may not be safe.  The 5G-compatible flip phone from AT&T and T-Mobile is/were from Alcatel with KaiOS from a Hong Kong (China) based company.  Initially KaiOS merely has Chrome.  KaiOS later jumped in deeper with Google with much more integration with Google stuff.  I'm not sure if AT&T/T-Mobile still offers flip phones, but these later OS versions would likely be as intrusive as carrying an Andriod phone.

I think sooner or later, all options may disappear and we will all be leashed like dogs.

SiliconWizard:
Who is this miss Behaving that you're talking about?


--- Quote ---Now do that with a Xiaomi device :( not only it's virtually impossible to remove all the crap, but to get to the bootloader to flash another ROM you have to have a sim card inserted, register with a whole lot of personal info to their site, request a temporary unlock of the bootloader, hope it's granted (it can take up to 30 days according to the terms i read), then you can install the new rom. But the bootloader won't stay unlocked forever.
--- End quote ---

Yes, but at least you can.
Try unlocking the bootloader on a Huawei.

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