Why does my calculator need a privacy policy? It's a calculator!
Why does my calculator need a privacy policy? It's a calculator!
76 comments
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A privacy policy can be “we don’t collect your data.”
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....is it, though?
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The actual menu item goes here: https://policies.google.com/privacy
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A privacy policy could literally say "our policy is to track and store nothing". Having one does not make it evil.
In the case of Google, I would not be surprised if it stays running in the background using a relatively large amount ram just for fun.
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In this case, it redirects to Google's general privacy policy that covers all their services. Anyway Google's calculator stores a history of all the calculations you did in your account somewhere. So I guess it needs to have a policy stating what they do with that data.
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while True(): youtube.background.play( video=rick_astly_nggyu, exclusive_ads_mode = true, audio=mute )
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It's got your number.
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God damnit... Just take the upvote and go.
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It just links to the overall Google privacy policy, in accordance with Play Store rules mandating privacy policy being easily accessible to users.
The calculator app doesn't request any permissions which you can check in settings
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My recommendation: get rid of that app and go for a zero-tracker one:
... or any other great FOSS calculator out there.
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Oh nice. Thank you. Installed.
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We send your calculations to your fourth grade teacher
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[aggressive ruler-slapping in the distance]
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Shows them with the "you're not going to have a calculator everywhere" talk
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Because it's Google's proprietary garbage app. Use FOSS alternatives from F-Droid instead.
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I'd rather have a Foss project with a simple privacy policy that clearly says they store nothing than one that has no policy at all
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A privacy policy is only legally required when you actually collect user data. Most devs don't write a privacy policy for no reason, so seeing one can often be suspicious. Btw if you are worried about a FOSS app tracking you without disclosing it in their privacy policy, if this is the case, F-Droid would display it under the Anti-features section.
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Privacy policies are BS anyway. Better to just not have an app that depends on a server or entity.
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Do you happen to know a good alternative to Google's Clock app on F-Droid?
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Yes, I use and recommend Clock You: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.bnyro.clock/
+1 for the Minecraft Clock mentioned in another comment tho
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CalcYou seems great, and it's on F-Droid.
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I've been using OpenCalc, but CalcYou seems great too
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Who knows, maybe they're required by Google to provide a privacy policy, like xscreensaver was
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Google is so far off the deep end of "cloud" shit and surveillance capitalism that the people running the Play Store can no longer even conceive of software that's incapable of spying because it doesn't connect to the Internet to begin with.
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I work for a company that requires everything to have a privacy policy that meets some minimums. We're technically not supposed to even use Google websearch because putting any question into it potentially sends company information into the world and out of our control. That one's not really enforced, thank goodness.
Without a privacy policy, I guess the calculator app could scrape the numbers you're entering, plus, idk an email and a OneNote entry for context, to reverse engineer the latest doodad we've been designing.
It's difficult to imagine what numbers from the calculator alone could be used for, but combine it with other information and you've got a problem.
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If there are only two digits after a decimal and less than four digits before, you could probably figure out if someone was doing budgeting using their computer. Like if the user imput is:
99.99 + 27.63 + 127.48 + 4.99 + 2.99 + 10 + 283.57
.....that looks a lot like someone calculating monthly bills and expenses.
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bruh what industry is this? Defense?
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Defensish. Close enough that we overlap some and have a lot of intense rules to follow.
These people throwing company private information into chatGPT are absolutely wild to me. I'm waiting for someone from an actual defense company to get busted and make headlines for putting like missile defense system specs in, and then it's part of the dataset used to feed answers to everyone else.
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Is day today having a privacy policy implies that the app is in fact being used for data collection. However, it appears to point to the general Google privacy policy...
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Because someone wants to know if you use the calculator to spell boobies (8008135)
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scandalous
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They want to know if you type in 8008135
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Because it will be reporting how often you look at 8008135
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This ^
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Because Google Calculator collects everything, just like any other Google app (except for Pixel Launcher probably).
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I just checked mine and it has no permissions. How is it collecting everything?
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It collects its own part (logs and probably even the calculation history).
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I can't believe you use the calculator for 2x2! Do you need help from mathtutors.com? It's only $5 per month but just for you we're applying a special rebate which puts your offer at a much lower $12 per month.
We also noticed that you calculated numbers near 700,000....are you try to buy a house? And also you keep dividing things by 9 and 12. Are you expecting a baby soon?
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Use the one that comes with Lineage OS. Alternatively you could use one off of F-droid
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That's so irrational.
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It doesn't add up
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It's also pretty divisive.
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Even unnatural
Transcendental
Unreal
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I use opencalc, stick to FOSS software as much as humanly possible.
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Just use CuteCalc instead.
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That's so cuuuuute
A teenager making a simple and cute calculator and deciding to share it with the world and the world takes that, people contribute, and project emerges
This is actually inspiring
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Is it free?
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Nothing is safe.
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No. Nothing is also not safe.
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stockpile on handhelds because soon even those are going to be data connected
76 comments
It is a requirement of both Android and iOS app stores to have a policy prominently displayed for users.
This. Although I'm not sure if it's about in-app display, but it needs to be on the store and on a website somewhere.
The default Samsung Calculator doesn't display a privacy policy (or any menu options really) in-app, but you can find them as a link at the bottom of the 'See Details' page under 'Data Saftey' on the play store. Annoyingly, it's just a generic set of terms that covers most of their products/services. That document says they collect and share all sorts of data, but the store page for the calculator say no data collected.
It's Apple Review Guideline 5.1.1:
(i) Privacy Policies: All apps must include a link to their privacy policy in the App Store Connect metadata field and within the app in an easily accessible manner...
For Android it's in their User Data article:
Privacy Policy All apps must post a privacy policy link in the designated field within Play Console, and a privacy policy link or text within the app itself...