Deceptive language frequently used against consumers

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.

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" and "integrity". 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.

"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.