this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024

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Privacy

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Google Allows Creditors to Brick Your Phone (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

364 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I installed NetGuard about a month ago and blocked all internet to apps, unless they're on a whitelist. No notifications from this particular system app (that can't be disabled) until recently when it started making internet connection requests to google servers. Does anyone know when this became a thing?

Edit 2: I bought my Pixel 6 phone outright, directly from Google's Australian store. I have no creditors.

Were the courts not enough control for creditors? Since when are they allowed to lock you out of your purchased property without a court order?

I don't even live in the US, so what the actual fuck?

Edit 1: You can check it's installed (~~stock~~ Pixel 6 android 14) Settings > Apps > All Apps > three dot menu, Show system > search "DeviceLockController".

I highly recommend getting NetGuard, you can enable pro features via their website if you have the APK for as low as 0.10€, but donate more, because it's amazing. You can also purchase via Google Play store.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (12 children)

Weird, I have project fi and don't have this app. It could be contractually required by your service provider that the app be installed on all the phones that they sell. That's a thing that they do.

Who is the carrier?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (3 children)

damn and no one at google saw this as dystopian?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

They saw this reality and thought it was awesome.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What's stopping someone from enabling debug mode, downloading adb tools and running pm uninstall --user0 then the package name? Surely with the app removed, the app can't brick your phone. Or running a custom rom like lineage or graphine os?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What’s stopping someone ...

Your average someone has no idea what any of that means.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

Fuck the entirety of this noise.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (9 children)

I'm in the US and it's not on my phone and even though it's listed in the Play Store it says it's not available in my region

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Apple does it to, but I've only ever seen it happen when you buy your phone on a payment plan as part of your service agreement through your service provider. Kind of like if you lease a car and stop making payments they can lock the engine from turning over.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm of the strong opinion that this ought not to be a thing. Even if you stop paying rent, they can kick you out, but there's a process they need to follow (in Australia anyway).

These software locks means they can do whatever they want, even if they're in the wrong, and then you're shit out of luck until you can take them to court, if you even have the time to do it...

It's so wrong, because of the power imbalance I really think this kind of thing should be railed against at all costs.

Google should not install this shit by default, and sneakily as well.

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