#google

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adb@adbenitez@mastodon.de

🚨 is collecting phone numbers /SIM from your phone by default now without asking for consent, here is how to disable it

I have a test phone with stock Android (and hence Google services) to test how the apps I develop behave there etc.

The other day I woke up with a notification in that phone, out of the blue Google was telling me they "verified my phone number" basically they stole/collected my phone number from my phone and sent it to their servers without any consent.

I know the trust bar is very low, but even then I didn't expect Google to do this.

Here is how you can disable the collecting of your phone numbers which is on by default:

Go to Settings -> Google -> All services -> Privacy & security -> Phone number verification. See attached screenshot.

Or even better: switch to or other systems

Please boost and spread with your not-so-techie friends that might be using stock Google phones

EDIT: corrected typo: it is "all services" not "all devices"

Matt Vestengen-Cox@matt@oslo.town

"Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near the town of Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone."

theguardian.com/environment/ng

the Guardian‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentreCompany ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push
Xamanismo Coletivo@eliasulrich@hachyderm.io

“…the largest companies in the world, including and , allowed themselves to be hijacked by a "mercenary " company that used the ad system to locate targeted individuals and serve "zero-click " that took over their computers and phones without them having to take any action.” @pluralistic

pluralistic.net/2026/10/17/mer

Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory DoctorowPluralistic: Israeli ad-tech company was a delivery system for “mercenary spyware” (17 Oct 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow