Why I might never buy an Android phone...(short and sweet, comments welcome)

[JQuill]

Big Brother...aka Google

It's wierd...you ask 99% of Americans who use google "When did you first use google and what for?" or "How did you hear about Google for the very first time"...most people have NO IDEA. They did not advertise on TV, radio, print, or on the web...they just popped up and it became a billion dollar word of mouth driven enterprise. Now that they have such power, such a vast amount of cash on hand (quite literally), such influence over the world one question remains; can they be trusted?

Most people (including me for the moment) would say yes. But here's something to think about...(aside from EVERY other market and industry Google has ventured into, I am strictly talking mobile here)

You own an android phone and you're required to get a Google account...so much for the open model. Now this wouldn't be a big deal IF most if not all the phones main features are rendered practically useless unless you're signed into your google account. What worries me most is honestly the calendar feature that requires you to sign into Google, coupled with the fact that the GPS radio is ALWAYS on and linked to Google servers.

The simple fact is...if you own an android phone, you are Googles market research BITCH.

If you own an android phone Google knows what your job is, where you are at ALL times, what you're going to be doing in the future, what you plan on doing, how much you deviate from that plan and what type of information YOU consume along the way so that they can advertise to you and make money.

To that I say no thank you. I'd like to think for myself...

They're services and products are amazing, but they get a little trigger happy when it comes to the mobile market...which says to me that they're tying to get majorly involved in government. They WILL be the first major company to have a very big steak in world governments, just like religion does today. You watch Google will hold a role in the world bigger than the catholic church within 50 years.

Me being a media professional and designer by trade, am in a fortunate position to take advantage of such a company and most of us here are. And once they take over the developed world they might even do some good for some war torn countries. But I still don't know if I trust the idea of a crazy Russian with a passion for space travel who owns a marketing company that got VERY lucky, have such great influence over the entire planet. Governments come down HARD when they fall...businesses don't fall as hard but they fall much more often than governments do...if business gets wrapped up in government like religion is well...let's just say I am almost regretting not being a redneck and having an armory in my basement.

Comments?

(by the way this is VERY short and sweet. If your attention span isn't this long you shouldn't be playing with phones.)

[MisterTedster]

Wow, you're going into the 21st century kicking and screaming aren't you?

But I'm with you on this one, that is to say, I'm never going to own an android phone either. Seeing as how I'm keeping my SERO for life and Sprint will never come around to having android phones on said plan, I too will never own an android phone.

But in reality, Microsoft could be doing the same thing.

Also, custom roms could always disable the GPS antenna and find a work-around to signing in all the time.

[redd214]

conspiracy theorist crack me up...

[rushco]

Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/5.0.3521/1150; U; en) Presto/2.4.15)

I will give up my info as long as Google is making my life easier. All info in 1 spot. A phone that just works with all my info. I am 1 out of a ton of people. As long as I am not doing anything bad I feel like I don't have anything to worry about.

If people are so concern you can go back to address books and snail mail. I'll keep up with the latest and greatest.

[elephant007]

I'm not going to sit here and say that you're not thinking in the right mind frame, I will say a few things though

You have the right to use which ever provider you wish and whatever device you wish to use. I really don't see a difference between using a Google phone, when they have your info or when you sign a contract with T-Mobile or someone who has an iPhone that has to register with Apple or someone who registers with Microsoft to use MarketPlace. You guy an operating system to run on your computer, who's to say that there's not some tracking bugs in that software you run on your computer or cell phone.
I think more people leak out more of their personal information by using MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, blogging, Craig's List and YouTube. They provide pictures and/or short vids of the activities they do on a daily bases, tell stories about their life and etc.

There are more than just Google to worry about. Remember Google is an internet driven company and although they might not spend millions/billions of dollars advertising on conventional media like radio and tv, they do advertise throughout the internet. I first found Google in early 1999 when I was on AskJeeves.com and asked "What are other seach engines I can use" and Google was a hit... I tried it and like it because by that time AskJeeves became super commercialized... search for "how do I tune a car" and the first page of hits was GM, Ford and other dealers trying to sell cars... that's not what I was looking for!! HA HA

You say that GPS is always on our phones and pointing to Google servers... well remember GPS is a government thing so how do you know our government isn't Eagle Eying you? Nobody really knows does anyone truly have privacy or just a sense of privacy. Think of how many things you signed up for in your life and provided personal information, how do you know to trust those people? When I say you I'm not meaning you personally just to people in general.

If you use the internet you are market research too, heard of cookies? Anyway there could be a great debate about everything listed here and you have good questions to which I don't have the answer. Only you can decide whether or not you want to use a product and no amount of advertising can make your mind up for you, although a good advertisement will educate you enough to hopefully make an educated decission

[rushco]

Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/5.0.3521/1150; U; en) Presto/2.4.15)

For some reason edit doesn't work on the mobile site...anyways wanted to add something else.

Things people use; Google search, mail, calendar, photos, maps, gps, checkout, soon google internet, google voice, goog 411, google text message, google phone.

I think more people should be worrying about keeping their password safe and making sure they change it.

[brnail]

I tend to agree with you about Google, although the simple fact that I am reading this forum suggests that I may willing to look past the fact that Google has too much information IMHO.

We don't really need to rely on conspiracy theories when we know that China hacked Google's servers. Security can be breached and a central repository, such as Google, is very Orwellian.

[elephant007]

Originally Posted by rushco

Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/5.0.3521/1150; U; en) Presto/2.4.15)

For some reason edit doesn't work on the mobile site...anyways wanted to add something else.

Things people use; Google search, mail, calendar, photos, maps, gps, checkout, soon google internet, google voice, goog 411, google text message, google phone.

I think more people should be worrying about keeping their password safe and making sure they change it.

Pretty good point there, you know they're a powerful source when Microsoft and Apple agree to join forces to compete against Google... e.g. Bing on the iPhone.

What about Wikipedia, they don't advertise conventionally yet everyone knows about them... How about PPCGeeks, no TV adverts for them yet here we are, oh yeah found them from a Google search... You know you're a powerful company when TV/Movies say "I Googled it" ha ha

Don't forget they have a web browser that works on all the major platforms Windows/Mac/Linux
Google Chrome OS and Android some operating systems... the list could go on and on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products

To support the OPs thought, Google did had DoubleClick AdWords AdSense Double-Click which are all marketing tools

I ain't skeert!

[redd214]

i see you have an hd2, whats to stop microsoft from doing all the things you listed with their myphone program? i dunno about anyone else but if given the choice between the two, i would rather allow google to keep some of my info than to allow my paranoia of "big brother" prevent me from purchasing the best products out there.

[gTen]

What..your still able to think JQuill..I'll have to report that to Google as a bug :/ jk

For me I started using google around 1997-1998..My favorite were Yahoo then Altavista and if I had nothing on bot hi'd try Lycos..thing is other then Yahoo most search was pretty terrible...horrible even...I know it well because I used to do search engine submissions at the time...what a pain...

I found google because I was searching around the web for something and noen of the engines could find what I need..it was something I really needed at the time so I Yahoo'd for other search engines hoping I'd find something like Altavista(which used multiple results and optimized) and I found Google which I used to search and it found it!

So I pretty much dumped all others other then Yahoo and Google..and made Google my primary search...then at one point Yahoo converted to using Google search(that made the news)..which at that point I dumped Yahoo since no point in searching same thing in 2 places..and stuck to using Google.

And again Android is opensource..you can edit Google out of it if you wanted to..but you gotta understand..if you have a calendar it has to sync somewhere..if you have a market place, money has to be processed somewhere. Thats why an account is needed...but as stated you can completely remove Google out of android..

and again yes I know google is out to conquer the world >.>