Serious accusations against Google: Were important Android privacy settings deliberately hidden?

Court documents have surfaced on the web that indicate that Google deliberately hid important privacy options as deeply as possible in Android's settings so that users would not use them if possible. Third-party manufacturers apparently also tried to persuade them to hide the options.

Serious accusations against Google: According to a report in Business Insider, the Android makers have deliberately hidden important privacy options as deep as possible in the operating system's settings. This is apparently from unredacted court documents, which are currently no longer accessible on the web, however.

Accordingly, Google had tested Android versions in which the settings for data protection and data collection were quite easy to find, whereupon these were also adjusted accordingly more often by the users. This was a "problem" for Google, which is why the options are hidden deeper in the settings.

In addition, Google probably tried to persuade third-party manufacturers like LG to make the options for location data collection as hard to find as possible with "obfuscating and false" representations of data.

According to Business Insider, the documents are part of a lawsuit against Google from last year. The background: The company is accused of collecting location data from users even if they had deactivated the corresponding settings options.

The former vice president of Google, Jack Menzel, had once even admitted that Google can only collect no location data if the user deliberately "confuses" the system by providing a false home and work address.

The court documents also show that many Google employees do not agree with the company's strategies. For example, they criticize that users are not given the opportunity to share location data with a third-party app without Google being able to view it.

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