Android: Why do a lot of the apps and games have over the top permission requirements

[JohnEJohn]

I can understand why some apps may require location services or access to the camera if they obviously offer geo location or the app itself involves taking pictures of some form.

But why oh why does almost every other app or game I download have requirements that I think are over the top? Usually wanting access to the address book, personal information, coarse and fine location?

Am I being paranoid about this or is it a legitimate concern?

I was going to install blood and glory to test it out and then I saw the requirements.

[SteadVéx]

Originally Posted by JohnEJohn

I can understand why some apps may require location services or access to the camera if they obviously offer geo location or the app itself involves taking pictures of some form.

But why oh why does almost every other app or game I download have requirements that I think are over the top? Usually wanting access to the address book, personal information, coarse and fine location?

Am I being paranoid about this or is it a legitimate concern?

I was going to install blood and glory to test it out and then I saw the requirements.

I would assume the dev's take googles advice and mine as much data from their users as possible...

I'm pretty anti google mind so i would take my opinion with a pinch of salt, however... it does seem that android's app's take more data than other platforms

Although when I read stuff like this it also makes me think twice

http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/20...are-full-list/

http://globalthreatcenter.com/?p=2492

It actually makes me ponder about all those years of me using win mo 5 through to 6.1 did i have anything on my phone in the background

[EMunEeE]

A lot of apps use Analytics and/or advertising SDKs. These SDKs require additional permissions to provide better services...such as localized ads to the user (hence coarse/fine location).

Doesn't explain the phonebook permission though.

[Tizen]

LBE Privacy Guard - requires root

All your issues resolved

[JohnEJohn]

Thanks for the replies guys, really considering going root now having looked at LBE privacy guard.

[Hidavi]

Originally Posted by JohnEJohn

Thanks for the replies guys, really considering going root now having looked at LBE privacy guard.

I'll check that out too, nice thread

[TenFour]

I'm an app developer. Although I always try to minimize permissions as much as possible, I have some ideas about why other developers use more than necessary.

I think coarse/fine location is usually used so they can show local ads. In Google's AdMob, you can optionally supply the user's location when requesting the next ad to show, which allows adMob to possibly serve local ads, instead of just global ones. Although "local" seems to be anything in a 400mile radius from what I've seen.

[SteadVéx]

Originally Posted by Tisti

LBE Privacy Guard - requires root

All your issues resolved

Thats pretty cool! shall be showing that to my friends who use android

[aviphysics]

Originally Posted by Tisti

LBE Privacy Guard - requires root

All your issues resolved

Any proof that it works? Not that long ago I read a review of a bunch of these kinds of apps that found that most of them didn't really do much of anything. BTW, what kind of permissions does LBE require and should we trust them more than anyone else?

My solution is to just not install an app if I am not happy with the permissions.

[Tizen]

You can set permisions to Deny/Prompt/Allow

When set to Prompt a popup windows shows up asking you if you allow the app to temporarily access something. So it probably works.

If it's trustworthy? I sure hope so D:

[FX-Overclocking]

I think a lot of app devs might be selling info somehow... is that possible? Why else would they want all that info that don't need?

[Tizen]

Sure it's possible. The problem is with apps that do it in a way that if you deny a permision, it can no longer function properly, e.g. disabling data for SMS application which has access to your contacts list and lots of juice info. No data, no MMS messages.