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From: Andrew <andrew@spam.net>
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Subject: Re: Android keyboard: your choice.
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2024 18:23:19 -0000 (UTC)
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croy wrote on Mon, 24 Jun 2024 07:25:50 -0700 :

> Being the ludite that I am, I had never heard of Firebase, so I turned to
> Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebase).  There I found this
> among the weeds:
> 
> *****
> User privacy controversies
> 
> Firebase has been claimed to be used by Google to track users without their
> knowledge. On July 14, 2020, a lawsuit was filed accusing Google of
> violating federal wire tap law and California privacy law. It stated that
> through Firebase, Google collected and stored user data, logging what the
> user was looking at in many types of apps, despite the user following
> Google's own instructions to turn off the web and app activity collected by
> the company.[17] The lawsuit was dismissed in January 2022, with Chief US
> District Judge Richard Seeborg ruling that a promise to avoid collecting
> user data did not amount to a contract.[18] 
> 
> [17]  "Google faces lawsuit over tracking in apps even when users opted
> out". Reuters. July 14, 2020. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
> 
> [18]  "US federal judge dismisses breach of contract claims in privacy
> class action against Google".  www.jurist.org. January 27, 2022. Retrieved
> May 18, 2022.
> 
> *****
> 
> That seems like a very odd decision to me, but there's not really much
> detail in that blurb.  But it sure adds bulk to the general cloud (no pun
> intended) of opinion that, "Google is evil".  And I would be interested to
> hear the judge's reasoning in that decision.

Thanks for confirming everything I've been saying, which is (essentially)
that unless the person (or article) specifically mentions "Firebase App
Indexing", then that person (or article) is useless for the purpose asking
them to provide any insight into the privacy aspect of Firebase App
Indexing.

As you've certainly already learned from that Wikipedia Firebase article,
there is not only no mention whatsoever of "App Indexing", it doesn't even
mention the word "indexing"; so it's essentially useless for our purpose.

As you've also already ascertained, even the blurb about the privacy
issues, when you delve into it, also doesn't mention the words "app
indexing", so it's really a dead end.

Is the lawsuit about Firebase App Indexing? 
We don't know because Firebase App Indexing was never mentioned (AFAICT).

Moving forward, Arno helped me with some keywords such that I think I wrote
a pretty good summary of what Firebase App Indexing is in terms of the
overall Firebase suite of completely and utterly unrelated tools.
 *Why do so many people confuse Google's Firebase (cloud API)*
 *with Google Services Google Firebase App Indexing (search results)?*
 <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?id=53751&group=comp.mobile.android#53751>

If I knew what I know now when I had opened that thread, I wouldn't have
titled it that, as it turns out that Google uses the word "Firebase" to
lump into the collection of APIs a huge amount of completely unrelated
things, only one of which is Firebase App Indexing.

Here's just some of the wholly unrelated things Google considers Firebase:
1. A/B Testing (Google Services Firebase A/B Testing)
2. AdMob (Google Services Firebase AdMob)
3. Analytics (Google Services Firebase Analytics)
4. App Indexing (Google Services Firebase App Indexing)
5. Authentication (Google Services Firebase Authentication)
6. Cloud Firestore (Google Services Firebase Cloud Firestore)
7. Cloud Functions (Google Services Firebase Cloud Functions)
8. Cloud Messaging (Google Services Firebase Cloud Messaging)
9. Cloud Storage (Google Services Firebase Cloud Storage)
10. Crashlytics (Google Services Firebase Crashlytics)
11. Dynamic Links (Google Services Firebase Dynamic Links)
12. Performance Monitoring (Google Services Firebase Performance Monitoring)
13. Realtime Database (Google Services Firebase Realtime Database)
14. Remote Config (Google Services Firebase Remote Config)

While "Google Services Firebase App Indexing" is deprecated, 
Firebase App Indexing is still very active on our Android phones, 
where an UPDATE_INDEX is still, even today, being uploaded 
periodically to Google servers based on what this cite explains.

 Google Services Firebase App Indexing
<https://medium.com/android-news/firebase-app-indexing-for-personal-content-getting-personal-content-into-search-c52bfe45b3ac>
 "A note about privacy: The personal content index 
  only exists on the user's device. 
  None of the user's personal content is uploaded 
  to Google servers and it only remains on the 
  device while the app is installed. 
  However, aggregated statistics about apps' usage 
  of App Indexing and other system health 
  information may be uploaded to Google servers."

You can see it for yourself on your own phone in front of you.
 <https://i.postimg.cc/KvCkLccr/firebase03.jpg> Firebase tracking

The main unknown is how can we figure out what exactly is
Google uploading when they get the SEND_INDEX results?