Deceptive language frequently used against consumers

❗Article Status Notice: Inappropriate Tone/Word Usage

This article needs additional work to meet the wiki's Content Guidelines and be in line with our Mission Statement for comprehensive coverage of consumer protection issues. Specifically it uses wording throughout that is non-compliant with the Editorial guidelines of this wiki.

Learn more ▼

How You Can Help: If this is a non-Theme article (See: Article types):

• Persuasive language should not be used in the Wiki's voice. Avoid loaded words, or the causing of unnecessary offense, wherever possible.
• No direct attacks on named individuals or companies. Malice may be attributed to bad and proven offenders, but only through the use of quotation and citation - never in the Wiki's voice.

If this is a Theme article:

• Where argumentation is used make sure it is clear and direct but not inflammatory. Avoid strong language, or causing unnecessary offense.
• No direct attacks on named individuals or companies. Malice may be attributed to bad and proven offenders, in a formal and calm manner.

This notice will be removed once sufficient documentation has been added to establish the systemic nature of these issues. Once you believe the article is ready to have its notice removed, visit either the Moderator's noticeboard, or the Discord (join here) and post to the #appeals channel.

Deceptive language used by companies to impede the rights of consumers comes in many forms. Many of them can be boiled down to a few principles.

"For the safety of the consumer"

This is one of the most cited reasons to restrict what a consumer is allowed to do with their property. It is used to fight against right-to-repair legislation, restrict downloading of apps unless provided by Google or Apple, etc. Some notable incidents include:

Google comparing APK restrictions to airport security

For many years, one of the primary selling points of Android smartphones was that no big corporation could gatekeep what the user can run on their phones. But starting with Android 17 in 2026, only developers manually approved by Google can create APKs that install on Android.

Developers applying for approval are required to violate their privacy by disclosing their real-life identity to Google.

Google used false benevolence to excuse this restriction:

Google says you should think of the new requirements like checking IDs at the airport.

This is a poor comparison because an airplane is the property of the airline while your smartphone is your property as the person who paid for it. What Google is doing is closer to them putting an airport security station at your doorstep.

Storage access restrictions in Android

From source.android.com:

Third-party apps must go through the Storage Access Framework to interact with files on portable storage; direct access is explicitly blocked for privacy and security reasons.

The only "security" storage access framework actually gives the user is that it prevents them from granting access to the root directory of the external storage (not to be confused with "root access" which gives you superuser privileges). So an imaginary app that does "bad stuff" can still do it inside the directory picked by the user.

These restrictions prevent legitimate apps such as file managers from functioning properly. If the user does not trust an app with access to the entire USB stick or SD card, perhaps one should not use that app at all. At the very least, users should have been given the option to grant exceptions to apps which use this access for legitimate purposes, such as file managers.

Storage Access Framework is no replacement for legacy storage access given its slowness from its large processing overhead. It is a soydev^{[citation needed]} technology. The performance loss may be concealed to some extent from the fast hardware smartphones have nowadays, but even then, it increases battery usage.

Google has a conflict of interest as a provider of cloud storage. Imagine SanDisk owned Android and blocked Google Drive. Everyone would recognize the obvious conflict of interest. And when Android restrictions break applications like file managers, end users complain to the app developers even though it is not their fault. So these restrictions also caused headaches to innocent app developers.

Non-replaceable batteries since the Samsung Galaxy S6

Samsung couldn't just switch to non-replaceable batteries without losing a word about it, so these words at the keynote by Justin Denison, Samsung's public relations person, filled that gap:

We refused to do this for some time. That's because we didn't want to have a built-in battery, until we were absolutely sure that users would feel confident about charging their phones.

These are the words Samsung used to excuse making the shortest-living part of the smartphone not replaceable, removing one of the long-standing selling points of Samsung smartphones at that time.

Mr. Denison is implying that the anticipation of not being able to replace a dead battery, at least not without great difficulty, is supposed to make the user "confident" about charging their phone. However, replaceable batteries provide the peace of mind that one is able to replace it at any time when (not if) it expires.

OnePlus "encrypted" batteries

The OnePlus Pad has a serialized battery, meaning the device detects repairs not approved by OnePlus, which can result in functionality being disabled. This is an anti-repair practice first seen on Apple iPhone 11.

However, OnePlus marketed this practice as "encrypting" the battery. Given that people associate "encryption" with something positive (for example end-to-end encryption on a messaging service), OnePlus attempted to "recycle" this word to glorify an anti-repair practice.

"Web Environment Integrity API" by Google

Google tried to implement Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) on the Internet, giving it the name "Web Environment Integrity API".

"To enhance our services"

Samsung "offers additional content" by advertising on refrigerators

This is an update message shown on a Samsung refrigerator:

To enhance our service and offer additional content to users, advertisements will be displayed [...]

Despite using benevolent-seeming phrases such as "enhance our service" and " offer additional content", the actual aim of the change was to place large and obtrusive adverts in users' homes.

Removing practicality and usefulness to "clean" up or "streamline" the experience

Fewer ports on modern laptops

In the 2000s and early 2010s, three or four USB ports built into laptops were not uncommon. Modern laptops in contrast usually feature one or two USB-A ports and might feature an USB-C port, in addition to less modular and less upgradeable parts. In reality, this has the opposite effect: due to fewer built-in ports on their laptops, the user is forced to carry hubs and adapters to be able to use the same functionality as before, which outweighs any portability benefit that the thinness might have afforded. Netbooks already existed as the category of laptops for people primarily interested in thinness.

Google wants to help cleaning up MicroSD cards by denying normal write access

MicroSD cards became a major selling point of Android smartphones compared to iPhones, allowing the expansion of the storage capacity by multiple times at a time where smartphone internal storage capacities were only in the double-digit gigabytes. In addition, MicroSD cards make it easy to rescue data from a broken smartphone and to get immediate free storage within minutes without hour-long file transfers.

In Android 4.4 KitKat, Google revoked normal write access to the MicroSD card through applications installed by the user, with the exception of folders dedicated to each app at "Android/data/(package name)". The write access could not be restored through a setting in the menu, only through rooting.

Google's argument was to ensure no app can leave files behind after uninstallation:

The WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission must only grant write access to the primary external storage on a device. Apps must not be allowed to write to secondary external storage devices, except in their package-specific directories as allowed by synthesized permissions. Restricting writes in this way ensures the system can clean up files when applications are uninstalled.

• If this was the actual goal, they would have done the same on internal storage. How come they initially only applied these restrictions to MicroSD, not internal storage? This was in 2014, where 32 GB were considered an average amount of internal storage, while MicroSD cards could be much larger, so the same files would have taken a lower percentage of the space.
• If an app leaves unwanted files, the user would simply uninstall the app and not use it again.
• Google is assuming judgement over which files are to be considered "junk". This is a decision of the device owner. If the device owner wants to remove "junk", they could already use the delete button in their file manager. Google is assuming that third-party apps leave unwanted files by default.
• There are valid reasons not to delete files left behind by an uninstalled app. What if you used a third-party camera app or text editor? Should all files you created with these apps be deleted if you uninstall the app? Of course not.
• MicroSD cards were one of the major selling points of Android smartphones over iPhones. Google attacked one of the main reasons people bought Android smartphones in the first place.
• If the device owner doesn't trust an app with access to the entire MicroSD card, perhaps they should not be using that app in the first place. Why would a user trust the same app with normal write access to internal storage but not the MicroSD card?
• In any case, the device owner should have been given the final say. A simple toggle in the storage options would have done the job. The device owner must be able to decide if they want so-called "protections" that are muzzles, not shields.

With this, Google created a much bigger problem than they solved. Those supposed "junk files" aren't nearly as bad as losing normal write access to the MicroSD card and external USB OTG, which were among Android smartphones' biggest selling points. It's like attacking a fly using a tank.

Keep in mind, this was at a time when stock Android didn't even have a built-in file manager. Some vendors like Samsung included a file manager, but on stock Android, there was no way you could manage your files on the MicroSD card without root access or from an external device.

Google quickly realized that removing MicroSD write access almost completely was perhaps no good idea, so they brought it back with Android 5.0, however only through Google's Storage Access Framework, which is extremely slow as already discussed earlier in the article, and broke compatibility with all the existing apps developed over the years.