> I am asking how does Android, Google's Android distribution not anything else, tracks users?
And I am saying it is a pointless thought experiment to separate Google from Android. Next you’ll say it’s the hardware that is android, not the software and ask how the hardware directly tracks users.
Edit: Read my original comment again, you are changing the subject. I haven’t said anything remotely conspiratorial, Google is open about their tracking in android. My point is that Google tracks you on android and if you turn it off your phone becomes crippled and in many cases for no reason except that google wants to make it as painful as possible to turn off data collection. Data collection is their business model after all.
iOS too ships with Google as the default search engine and just like on iOS, you can pick a different default on Android too. In fact Android has always allowed for changing all meaningful defaults, not something you can say about iOS. And in fact the world's leading Android makers, like Samsung, all of them ship with different defaults except for the Search engine (we're talking browser, email application, etc).
And all desktops actually ship with a browser that default to a search engine that tracks your searches, including Microsoft's Edge and their integration with Bing Ads. And Google is in fact the most transparent about what they track.
So if your answer is the Google Profile, which is transparent and can be turned off, then it's a pretty shitty answer. Unless you can point to implementation details in Android proper, all of this is just a conspiracy theory, similar to anti-vaxxing.
Dare I ask what the point is?
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I am not talking about de-Googled Android. Turning off web/app activity in your Google profile is not equivalent with de-Googling your Android.
I am asking how does Android, Google's Android distribution not anything else, tracks users?