After META and Yandex had their long established and trivial-to-implement cookie tracking abilities (Localhost->HTTP(S)/WebRTC) exposed a few months ago, I have been waiting for some changes to come along to try and lock out potential snoopers who might figure out how they are now de-anonymizing phone users and tracking their web habits.
Preventing sideloading, combined with moving some of the dev internal, both seem like moves toward this end to me. But what do I know, I have never even owned a smartphone.
After META and Yandex had their long established and trivial-to-implement cookie tracking abilities (Localhost->HTTP(S)/WebRTC) exposed a few months ago, I have been waiting for some changes to come along to try and lock out potential snoopers who might figure out how they are now de-anonymizing phone users and tracking their web habits.
Preventing sideloading, combined with moving some of the dev internal, both seem like moves toward this end to me. But what do I know, I have never even owned a smartphone.
Facebook’s app is in Play Store. Google knew FB was violating ToS for months.
Blocking sideloaded apps would have done nothing against that.
Unless the take is: Google wants to know who, exactly, they are permitting to do crimes on your phone. They don’t like the not-knowing part.