Protect your privacy

The official Google Play Android app is spyware. When enabled and connected to an account it will constantly report back to the mothership.

Question: How much is Google spying on me?
Answer: Do you really want to know?

Once you bind a Google Account to your smartphone, you give the official Play app permission and opportunity to put all your activities on record. The app will first register a GSF ID and then upload a comprehensive device profile (including serial numbers and IMEI). The GSF ID is basically a supercookie, identifying you on your device uniquely. This supercookie is transmitted whenever your device communicates with Play. The Play app furthermore adds your account to the operation system’s account manager, which allows all Google apps on your device to use it. It is not intended that you can ever log out again (except by removing the account from the device again). From this point on, you are no longer anonymous. Every Google app/service you use can and will track your activity. Some of these services run in the background, making it extremely difficult to tell that and what data is being collected.

The Google Play app frequently performs “checkin” requests. In which it sends telemetry and receives server commands. In a nutshell that means, Google knows where you are and can remote control your device.

The worst problem with the Play app is that it may also serve as a proxy through which apps may implement their cloud integration, allowing Google to even peek inside what happens in non Google apps.