Deceptive language frequently used against consumers

False benevolence, also known as the "we're just protecting you" excuse, the "it's for your best" excuse, etc., is a tactic corporations often use to excuse eroding freedoms.

This is done using pleasent-sounding words such as "protection" and "safety". It is the same kind of "protection" one gets from disconnecting the Internet. It indeed is safer never to connect to the Internet, but it comes with losing access to a highly useful resource. These "protections" resemble a muzzle, not a shield.

Examples

Google restricting APK installation

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 change:

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

This is a poor comparison because the 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 "protection" storage access framework actually gives you is that it prevents you 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 you picked.

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.

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.