The article implies that Google apps and services are to blame for user data collection, but 3rd party apps should also be taken into account: most apps require access to practically every resource no matter if it's really needed or not, and the wort part of it is the users who got accustomed to open everything just to play even the lamest game. That makes any phone out there the worst possible platform to do anything remotely related to security/privacy/banking/money etc.
I dream of a phone-sized 100% open platform with Debian, nothing more.
Even though I agree with you, I think Google should set the example and show good practices if it wants to entice developers to do the same.
"Why bother if Google is already doing it?" is something I heard too many times.
Since the article doesn't link to the study I will discard this as statistical meaninglessness.
How do you measure "10 times more"? If my OS steals my pictures but one converts them to *.webm before they get sent, and waste more MB data with that, did they collect more? Is an OS better because it sends more detailed location data but fewer times a day or the other way around? What if Users chat more on average on one OS? What about bloated apps that produce more noise? What about data that get's send but isn't sensitive, like I don't know, the average reaction time of the power button? You can send that 2000 times a day and I still care less than when you keylog me...
