Can Android link your phone account to your other google accounts?
April 20, 2018 3:30 PM Subscribe
Can Android link your phone account to your other google accounts? eg if you log into another account using a mail app? Is there any way to stop this?
I've always had multiple email accounts for different things, and most of them are google. Now i've got an android phone, trying to log in on firefox or other browsers to gmail triggers AppStore to try to install the app and brings up my phone google account, which i don't want linked to my other email accounts (all i use google for) because they're private and i don't want login pins and rubbish. Plus i just don't want all my stuff (finance, private, super private, work, dirty, youtube etc) all linked up. Can they track me via mail apps and see what gmail account i'm logging into?
I've always had multiple email accounts for different things, and most of them are google. Now i've got an android phone, trying to log in on firefox or other browsers to gmail triggers AppStore to try to install the app and brings up my phone google account, which i don't want linked to my other email accounts (all i use google for) because they're private and i don't want login pins and rubbish. Plus i just don't want all my stuff (finance, private, super private, work, dirty, youtube etc) all linked up. Can they track me via mail apps and see what gmail account i'm logging into?
Oh and make sure you disable or turn off any sync settings on your device. And go through security and update settings on both your device and in individual apps, because there's ususally additonal google settings in there that are set up on default. Most phones will let you hide google apps from your menus, but not uninstall them completely. You can do this, but it requires rooting your device.
Unslaving your Android from Google will take at least an hour, but it's totally worth it and will save you a lot of data if you use and pay for it.
posted by OnefortheLast at 6:16 PM on April 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Unslaving your Android from Google will take at least an hour, but it's totally worth it and will save you a lot of data if you use and pay for it.
posted by OnefortheLast at 6:16 PM on April 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
The probably do some tracking by IP address and there's a possibility that they do analysis of usage patterns too, but who knows.
You can use a non-Google email app, which won't itself link the accounts you use with the account on your phone.
posted by trig at 11:55 PM on April 20, 2018
You can use a non-Google email app, which won't itself link the accounts you use with the account on your phone.
posted by trig at 11:55 PM on April 20, 2018
The question is will Google discover the accounts and credentials for another email account if you don't log into it with the GMail app, but instead you log into it on your phone with a different, third party mail app? As far as I'm aware, Google doesn't link accounts that way, no. I use my non-Gmail work account on my Android phone with a third-party app, and I've never seen any linking like that with my work account.
posted by Aleyn at 1:42 AM on April 21, 2018
posted by Aleyn at 1:42 AM on April 21, 2018
If you go to settings -> apps -> Gmail there should be an option "open by default" (or similar) which, if you clear, should prevent the Gmail app from auto opening, then you can use your browser like normal
posted by jaymzjulian at 3:42 AM on April 21, 2018
posted by jaymzjulian at 3:42 AM on April 21, 2018
Response by poster: h'm, i will follow all your advice. Because i'm still finding it hard to use and only get a couple of hours with it in the evening, i'm going to enact it over several days.
What i've found is, some email apps trigger gmail app, some automatically fetch the phone's gmail address - meaning i'd have to log out of my phone's google account! - and some wait for me to enter all this. So far K9 email app is the one that appears not to link my phone gmail to the ones i want to log into securely - is this related to the fact that it uses 'OAuth' (name?) whatever that is?
Two of my accounts got linked because i checked them both using Thunderbird, so Google do link things that way. In Windows i use Epic browser (indian, very privacy-focused) to check my accounts and they stay separate.
posted by maiamaia at 1:19 PM on April 21, 2018
What i've found is, some email apps trigger gmail app, some automatically fetch the phone's gmail address - meaning i'd have to log out of my phone's google account! - and some wait for me to enter all this. So far K9 email app is the one that appears not to link my phone gmail to the ones i want to log into securely - is this related to the fact that it uses 'OAuth' (name?) whatever that is?
Two of my accounts got linked because i checked them both using Thunderbird, so Google do link things that way. In Windows i use Epic browser (indian, very privacy-focused) to check my accounts and they stay separate.
posted by maiamaia at 1:19 PM on April 21, 2018
Unfortunately, you will have to log out of your Google account to resolve these issues. For the concerns you've expressed, I would highly recommend setting up a separate Google account just for your device usage, that way data won't transfer in the ways that you're finding problematic or bothersome.
From there, you can go into settings, apps, and chose 'restore to default' all app settings. Restart your device and when you open your apps again, they will newly request permission to access Google apps/services and you can choose deny.
To fix your other issue, log into your Google account and in settings there will be a page for linked apps/accounts/services and this will list all accounts and apps associated. You can then remove the permissions.
Google has some really useful sync properties for android apps and services, but they do come at the price of their invasive data mining polices.
posted by OnefortheLast at 6:45 PM on April 22, 2018
From there, you can go into settings, apps, and chose 'restore to default' all app settings. Restart your device and when you open your apps again, they will newly request permission to access Google apps/services and you can choose deny.
To fix your other issue, log into your Google account and in settings there will be a page for linked apps/accounts/services and this will list all accounts and apps associated. You can then remove the permissions.
Google has some really useful sync properties for android apps and services, but they do come at the price of their invasive data mining polices.
posted by OnefortheLast at 6:45 PM on April 22, 2018
One last note, gmail does log the dates/times, locations, browser/app used, device type, system platform, and IP address each time you log in, so there is no way to access your email account on your phone that will circumvent this entirely if you plan to use your phone to check your email.
posted by OnefortheLast at 7:01 PM on April 22, 2018
posted by OnefortheLast at 7:01 PM on April 22, 2018
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Go into the app settings and disable whichever Google apps you don't use
Go into settings for Google specifically on your Android and disable all tracking and monitoring features
Go into permissions, include system permissions and remove permissions from Google apps
If you still want to use Google play to download apps, make a new gmail account specifically just for that, and use it to sign in.
Sign into your Google account in a browser and go through the settings to remove or disable additional tracking features, including your YouTube usage. Sign into gmail and go into settings and disable chat so that others can't view your online status and times. Do not sign into chrome itself with the account though. Download and use an alternate browser if the sign in prompts become an annoyance. Using Google play for apps also requires not disabling the Google play and Google play services app and permissions for it to work properly, but you can set it to not constantly run in the background in settings as well.
posted by OnefortheLast at 6:02 PM on April 20, 2018 [1 favorite]