Talk:Google

Other potential Google topics

(These are from memory of past experience and events, I'm not searching for sources now but I'm sure there are past online discussions or news articles that cover these)

Firefox search engine- Google has been paying Firefox devs Mozilla to keep their search engine as the default engine. During browser setup, there is no prompt to select search engines or inform that they can switch in settings. This is a matter of Google abusing its monopoly-like power to influence a Chromium competitor and ultimately manipulate the browser market which can influence consumer's choices without them knowing. Has had recent legal action taken.

Android (and Chromium)- Google has been taking certain actions to increase the dependency of their own proprietary services against the Android Open Source Project. One example is removing Miracast support for no clear reason, likely being to encourage Chromecast usage, and where custom ROM makers simply re-added support afterwards. Another example is the dependency of Google Play Services, an app that can collect data in the background, supposively required for the majority of Google apps and services which cannot function independently without it, a breach of permissions (?). With Android TV, Google requires that the default home launcher, which shows unsolicited advertisements on the first page, be set on 3rd party ATV devices such as the Nvidia Shield, in order for the distributor to be able to distribute the play store and services on the device (there are few to no alternatives for TV appstores on ATV, so the play store is practically a dependency). By extension, the Chromium browser has been seeing similar ties with Google services despite being open source, though more issues with the web browser arise in advertisements and data collection.

Daydream- a discontinued successor VR headset similar to Google Cardboard, features a built in NFC chip that automatically opens to the Daydream app. The Daydream app however cannot function on devices newer than the ones which were present when the headset launched, despite modern devices exceeding the performance requirements. Any Daydream-specific games require the app to function, and the included remote additionally is dependent on the app and cannot clearly be used for other purposes, essentially making it ewaste (perhaps some hackers could find a workaround but there's not much interest in it). The headset itself can function as a cardboard headset if the NFC chip is blocked or NFC is turned off.

Note: it's probably easy to list off google's failed products, but the challenge is to list those which google mistreated users when shutting down, such as failing to provide equal or similar alternatives (Picasa -> ggl photos, Picasa had an API that allowed public sharing of photos, that was deprecated over time with no replacement). Shutting down something but then transferring user data to a new service, such as maybe Hangouts to Allo to Google Chat, might not be examples that would fit the wiki.

Youtube- an entire issue on its own, topics of interest include the actual ownership of videos hosted on the platform and to what legal extent Youtube is able to demonetize or take down videos or user accounts (expands into issues of transparency which is in scope of the wiki, as well as legal issues of copyright and DCMA which is beyond the scope of the wiki). Additionally, there are consideration of how advertisements are delivered in the platform, which is part of advertisements and data collection. There have been claims of Youtube (and perhaps other Google services) intentionally adding delays on non-Chromium web browsers, however I don't think Google has made any official statement regarding this.

Advertisements and data collection- Google makes money off of ads, and are well known to be collecting identifiable user information sometimes without explicit consent, in order to deliver targeted ads, and likely sell the data to 3rd parties. Google currently provides some tools to control what data they store, however there are little to no settings to set custom user preferences for targeted ads. Additionally, with Chromium and the Manifest browser specification, Google has implemented measures specifically targeting ad blockers to reduce their functionality, while giving (or ignoring the issues of) ads with more control and more data from the user's web browser. Google claims that these actions would help increase security or privacy in the web browser, however they ignore the argument which ad blockers help increase privacy and security by disabling data collecting scripts and malicious links and advertisements.

reCaptcha- the automatic checkbox ("I am human") has been claimed to use advanced algorithms to identify users against bots (see: generative AI detectors, which would be a topic I think valid for this wiki, considering their use in school and the expectedly high false positive rates they can produce hurting students' reputation without cause). However it has been tested that the captcha instead prefers to accept users running Chromium web browsers more frequently than alternatives, providing a bias in what should otherwise be an unbiased test. Impacts user experience and priorities users based on their web browser as a possible way to influence users into choosing Chromium.

Android System Safety Core

On or around February 10th, 2025, Louis uploaded a video that has since been deleted regarding the application silently installed on Google Play Services-enabled devices, "Consider uninstalling client side scanning utility from your android phone; androidsystemsafetycore".

While I find it very unusual that the deletion happened and no follow-up video was made, this is irrelevant to the wiki article, but I definitely feel like it at least deserves a spot as there's no mention of it anywhere on the wiki yet.

From a limited amount of research and no archive of that video, it appears to be a proprietary daemon that scans incoming and outgoing media to/from applications that implement it and add a blur filter according to the user's preferences, or family controls. It sounds a lot like the highly controversially designed CSAM filtering technologies Apple and the EU intended to roll out a few years ago.

Allegedly it all happens locally, but it is hard to trust a silently added proprietary blob that is designed to be used invisibly in many applications. I feel like it is a severe enough risk to be addressed on this page or as a separate wiki page.

Created page as a jumping off point: https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Android NDN (talk) 16:45, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Stadia shutdown

In the interests of fairness, might be worth stating more explicitly what the refund included when Stadia was shut down, as it was a pretty decent attempt to make their customers whole (iirc it was a full and automatically applied refund of hardware, software and most subscriptions for anything paid over the lifetime of the device) Keith (talk) 10:15, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Google Play Integrity screwing over custom ROMs

Google has tightened its Play Integrity, previously named SafetyNet. Now, it requires all devices to be hardware backed to be certified by it's new standards. Custom ROMs like Lineage OS, Pixel OS and Graphene OS all have been affected by this issue. These custom ROMs now cannot access:

- banking apps

- chatgpt

- google wallet with its NFC tap to pay

- various mobile games like Pokemon GO

Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/google-play-integrity-hardware-attestation-3561592/

You could argue that it's for "security" but it doesn't actually make it more secure at all. Those who want to go past security checks like these already go past them through creating patches with rooted phones. And those who just want a phone without google, should have the right to have it their way. This change only serves to reduce user freedom and may signal a future where Google exerts complete, iron-fisted control over the Android ecosystem. Trunestor (talk) 13:08, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

Play "Protect"

I feel we should do a write-up on Google's hail mary to "protect" users, which in reality restricts consumer choice by ultimately disabling sideloading of apps and making Google a monopoly in app distrubution through their Google Play Store, which I recommend people to not use due having the living day lights of that crap having been enshittified. SinexTitan (talk) 18:51, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Turns out it was already done. So I copied the summary from that page and pasted it with reference to the page. SinexTitan (talk) 20:58, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

anti-competitive stuff and JS

Search

G Search on Firefox for Android is intentionally restricted by Google. See:

• Infinite redirects
• Addon

Recently, they started blocking users who enable Desktop-Mode to use Google Lens without the app, saying "Update your browser". Desktop is necessary, because when G Search detects the device is Android, it redirects to the Google app (or Play Store, if not installed)

JS

Both Google search and Gmail login (not just Gmail, all G services) "require" JavaScript to work. This wasn't the case in 2023 (not sure if this began on 2024 or 2025) Rudxain (talk) 20:51, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Rip my noscript extension, we need to get this on the wiki RIGHT NOW!! :( (joke)

Seriously though, if it is actually necessary and there are reliable sources, then sure! AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 06:07, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

lmao. yeah I agree. It's not that big of a deal. But it raises privacy and security concerns, and it's related to bloatware:

• https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
• https://tonsky.me/blog/js-bloat

Rudxain (talk) 06:28, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

BTW, I wrote an (unfinished) blog-post about this with 20+ sources:

• https://github.com/Rudxain/blog/blob/main/post/js-abuse.md
• https://rudxain.github.io/blog/post/js-abuse

The 1st link will break.

When the 2nd breaks, remove the "/post" part.

I'm posting both because the 1st one is "better" (for now) Rudxain (talk) 22:01, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

as a noscript user, I agree AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 06:36, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

• The inf-redir thing is linked in the JS article
• I've mentioned the Lens thing on FADL
• JS requirement for Search is mentioned (on JS article), but not the login thing

Rudxain (talk) 16:23, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

they REALLY despise ad-blockers

It's worth mentioning that G forbids any apps (on Play Store) that have the mere capability of blocking ads, even if the apps aren't presented as "ad-blockers". For example, NetGuard, which has a /etc/hosts-like domain-blocking feature in the GitHub release, was forced to be crippled in the play-store release (alt line), on the grounds of "system stability" or something (I can't remember)

See also Rudxain (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Eeeek! That is definitely worth mentioning, maybe in its own article? AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 19:18, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it really needs its own article; why would it? Rudxain (talk) 12:12, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

I've linked this topic there, but it didn't show up here Rudxain (talk) 12:20, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

What Links Here doesn’t work like that. It counts all links to that place with the hyperlink format. So for example, if I link to the main google article like this: Main Page, checking the WLH for the main page this will show up in that list as I linked to it (if you get what I mean). AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 16:07, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! It works now. I assumed the # didn't work for internal links Rudxain (talk) 05:31, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Done! (found enough sources) Rudxain (talk) 16:17, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

G+ Name Policy controversy (2011)

• Stilgherrian's blog post
• eevee's blog post

Rudxain (talk) 19:10, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Glaring mishandling of clear-cut hacking cases

So far I have one incident that could be escalated into a paragraph in Google's article if there are any more similar incidents with comparable level of documentation.

TL;DR Google refuses to restore access to a known youtuber's gmail account despite huge public backlash, highly suspicious internet traffic, all conceivable proof of ownership and big public backlash. They even reached out to ask the hacked person to delete their original tweet (for their own safety ofc!) but can't do jack because of an apparently existing loophole that hackers used - claiming the account under the parental control of...itself?

Here are the relevant vids with info on the case

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOz6P91BTzU - the original incident report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAevKYgCh5s - follow up after public backlash.

Sorry this is my first contribution to this place and I hope you guys can give me pointers on how to convert this info into something more useful and whether it belongs here in the first place. And if it does I'll try to invite the actual victim and the person who made the vids here so that they can cooperate and add more info. Cheers! Cowbless (talk) 09:34, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

No account transfer

Google doesn't support "renaming" the main Gmail address of an account, it doesn't even support transferring all data between accounts. However, it does have an "export" feature. I'm not sure where in the article this should be mentioned.

Idea from here Rudxain (talk) 02:56, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Gboard requires PIN to clear learned words

Since months (years?) ago, the Gboard Android app forces the user to input an ad-hoc randomly-generated 4digit sequence to delete all learned words. Asking the user for confirmation is fine, but I find it extremely questionable that the prompt is a PIN, as if deleting that data is a life-or-death situation Rudxain (talk) 23:34, 3 April 2026 (UTC)