Google: Android Won’t Share Personal Info With Apps Unless You Let It

In response to the uproar over how mobile iOS applications have had access to address-book data without having to inform the user, Google was all too happy to confirm that its development model for Android applications makes it impossible to share personal data with an app developer unless you agree to do so before installing the app.

Tim Bray, Google’s head of Android developer relations, addressed Android’s take on the Path-inspired mess that forced Apple to acknowledge that it should have done a better job policing apps that uploaded address-book data from users without explicit permission. “Reading contacts on Android requires explicit OK,” he said on his Twitter feed, pointing to two Android development articles that address how Android deals with granting permission to access personal data.