this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024

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How to stop Google from watching and listening on my phone? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by gedaliyah to c/asklemmy

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

...within reason. I know that the top answer will be to flash a different OS on your device. A lot of us are not at that point right now.

So I was texting with my wife in Spanish and suddenly a system bubble popped up, "would you like to translate this to English?" At a minimum, this means that Google is reading the words on my screen at all times to detect the language. I don't know if this is possibly done on device, but translation certainly isn't. I've already changed my system translation app to Translate You.

I've noticed other times that Google watches or listens in the background. It has a feature to detect ambient songs playing, for example.

What other standard settings should I check for to prevent Google from watching and listening to my phone in the background?

Edit: I was not using a Google messeging app at the time. It was detecting the text from another app. The specific setting in this case was to switch off "Live Translate," in System settings.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I don’t care if I’m the most downvoted for this, and I read your disclaimer but… iPhone. I loved Android but switched to iOS after playing with my partner’s phone and I couldn’t be happier. All the weird privacy invasive things like Siri (which I aways have disabled), image recognition/search, FaceID, and all that are on-device and send no data out. My current phone is six years old and works perfectly, and I’ve never reformatted it.

I know lemmy hates Apple, but if you want a phone where an advertising company isn’t constantly spying on everything you do and don’t want to fiddle with installing a different OS, it’s amazing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I know lemmy hates Apple, but if you want a phone where an advertising company isn’t constantly spying on everything you do and don’t want to fiddle with installing a different OS, it’s amazing.

Ignorance is truly bliss, isn't it?

https://searchads.apple.com/

All the weird privacy invasive things like Siri (which I aways have disabled), image recognition/search, FaceID, and all that are on-device and send no data out

Did you check their source code? monitored their network traffic with mitm proxy? or just believed what Apple told ya?

Wanna try another talking point you "heard" to feel better about using Apple?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I’ve MITM’d myself many times and sure, Apple sends some telemetry and has a few advertising domains but for the most part a solid VPN with custom DNS blocklists (and blocking Apple’s crazy DoH service used to serve ads in News) I’m pretty happy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Great, let me contact Apple to roll out my advertisement strategy.

Oh damn, it's only about ads in their app store. They must make a killer now they're in Google's market of web advertising.

[–] hightrix 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is the answer.

Don’t buy a phone made by an advertising company if you don’t want everything you use it for to feed ads data.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not anymore. Apple is in the advertising business, albeit less than Google right now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Are you seriously that dumb that you're comparing selling ads in a store (the App Store) with selling ads on every other inch of the internet?

There is quite some difference between selling ad-space in a store and having ads as your one and only business model. You wouldn't know of course and that's why you are a Google fanboy.