Personal Online Privacy... Interesting Read

The solution is simple. Allow users to modify which permissions an app can actually use compared to what it asks for on first run.

90% of in-app advertising comes from a select few APIs, so these could be given exceptions to allow them to work even if the user disables network access for an app.

That will never catch on, though. Look at the permissions Google apps demand.

 

On Android it's do or die unless you use a 3rd party permissions editor like Advanced Permissions Editor. You get a list before you install of all the permissions that an app wants, and you decide then if you can live with the permissions.

The problem is that the 3rd party tools usually leave the app buggy because the developers didn't expect an app to get an exception while trying to use a feature. If they knew from the start that what they ask for isn't necessarily what they'll get, they'd be more careful.

And Google cleans house in the Play store every now and then, but there's just too many copy-cat apps that do questionable things for you to be reasonably safe as-is.

I'd use an iPhone if I could see that tiny ### screen it has...