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1. Embed this notice
   nixCraft 🐧 (nixcraft@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 15-Oct-2026 06:22:54 JST nixCraft 🐧

   PSA: Google is silently linking your phone number across all signed-in accounts https://www.androidauthority.com/google-auto-phone-number-verification-android-3723117/

   Anyone surprised by this? Every AI and tech company wakes up each day asking the same question. How can we build an even bigger surveillance network, squeeze more profit out of it and turn George Orwell’s 1984 into reality? At this point, they are not predicting the dystopian future. They’re building it and charging its users for it. Truly evil stuff.

   • Embed this notice
     #?.info :commodore: (poundquerydotinfo@forum.virctuary.com)'s status on Thursday, 15-Oct-2026 06:25:41 JST #?.info :commodore:

     in reply to

     • G Allen

     @vollink @nixCraft Well OK but someone wrote the logic that says "If they refuse to enter a phone number, we'll send them an email they'll know is a lie"

   • Embed this notice
     #?.info :commodore: (poundquerydotinfo@forum.virctuary.com)'s status on Thursday, 15-Oct-2026 06:25:42 JST #?.info :commodore:

     in reply to

     • G Allen

     @vollink @nixCraft Me too. Including my old social media account meaning I can't delete my old Blogspot despite not wanting it up any more.

     At some point I shall fork over cash for burner phones and go through all of this. But they suck. I wonder how anyone can seriously have written the email we get that you mention and been unashamed knowing it'll always be sent to the person who knows they're lying.

   • Embed this notice
     G Allen (vollink@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 15-Oct-2026 06:25:42 JST G Allen

     in reply to

     • #?.info :commodore:

     @poundquerydotinfo @nixCraft Well it's the same as the email they send if you miss a 2FA. But yeah, to me, it is only about closing the account at this point. Oh, well.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     G Allen (vollink@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 15-Oct-2026 06:25:43 JST G Allen

     in reply to

     @nixCraft I did lose an account because of this. They demanded a phone number to a 19 year old account, then helpfully emailed me that they protected me from a hacker trying to log in. No, you blocked me because I'm not putting a phone number on that.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 15-Oct-2026 06:25:44 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • :awesome:🐦‍🔥nemo™🐦‍⬛ 🇺🇦🍉

     @nemo @nixCraft It's not a matter of what store you're using but whether you have Play Services/gApps installed.

     If you have a de-Googled phone, with no Play Services or with microG replacing it, you have nothing to worry about.

     If you have a device running Google's version of Android with all their spyware, it's going to connect any phone numbers available to the device to any Google accounts it signs in to, unless you successfully get it to accept that you don't want that.

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     :awesome:🐦‍🔥nemo™🐦‍⬛ 🇺🇦🍉 (nemo@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 15-Oct-2026 06:25:45 JST :awesome:🐦‍🔥nemo™🐦‍⬛ 🇺🇦🍉

     in reply to

     @nixCraft What happens when folks use Aurora Store with no Google account and no Google browser? Will they register over 9k numbers to one random account? #Degoogle #rulez 187 on it