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No,I am not having this!

I have written a couple of Android apps and expect to write a few more over the coming year or so.

Or should I say "I had expected to write a few more".

It now looks as if I won't be writing any more Android apps because of a change that Google is making to its Android developer ecosystem.

Our dystopian world has taken yet another turn towards utter absurdity with this latest diktat from Google and I am having no part of it.

So just what have they done that has got me so pee'd off?

Google plans to force Android developers to verify their identities if they want to continue creating apps.

Sorry?

I mean, WTF?

If this goes ahead, you won't be able to create and run *any* Android app without first submitting your "personal details, like your legal name, address, email address, and phone number" and the site says "You may also need to upload official government ID".

Forget it Google!

Now if this was just required for apps that were submitted to the Google App store then I could perhaps understand this move. Maybe (just maybe) they could justify it by asserting that it could reduce the risk of malware being distributed via the store because the creators could be traced and dealt with by the law.

However, this restriction applies to *all* apps, even ones that you might be writing solely for your own use and which you would side-load onto your device. Google has absolutely no need to see my govenment-issued ID for that purpose and I for one will not be playing that game.

It's pretty clear that we are headed for a dystopian world where the essential freedoms of privacy and anonymity are to be relegated to the history books and this is just another step along that path but it's a step I refuse to take and so should others.

Perhaps this may be the incentive some folk need to jailbreak their phones and switch from Android to some other non-Google and more secure OS. I know that I shall certainly be exploring that option myself.

Google knows that personal information is the gold they mine for their ad network and it is that network that is the cornerstone of their huge revenues (US$350 billion in 2024). The more personal information they have on us the more they can use that to better serve us ads and charge their advertisers higher fees.

With what seems like the entire internet rapidly capitulating to pressure from the UK and Australian governments to age-gate access to websites (and soon VPNs), we're progressing down the slippery slope to a total loss of privacy far more quickly than many people could have imagined. I suspect that by the time "the great unwashed" actually wake up to what has happened it will be too late to fix the problem.

Old hippies like me, who value their privacy and the right to anonymity when one chooses to be anyonymous, will have to set up our own underground comms networks and reinvent the internet -- as I have proposed in previous columns. Sadly, I fear that if we do so, it won't be long before such private networks are categorized as illegal, likely on trumped-up "anti terrorism" grounds.

Soon all we'll have are memories of the days when we were truly free. I'll have to be content telling my grandkids about the days when a whole generation risked their lives to save our freedoms from invading Nazi forces -- only to have them finally stolen by the governments and corporations that are allegedly there to serve us.

However, even a harmless recollection such as this would likely see "the powers that be" break down my door and arrest me for sedition.

Viva la revolution!

Carpe Diem folks!

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