> Example: Some time ago I needed a kitchen timer app (stock one had some issue). The great majority of them wanted permissions like contacts, access to my files, GPS location, and on top of it internet to upload all of this probably. Even though a kitchen timer shouldn't require any private data at all!
That's completely legitimate. It needs those permissions to tell your guests when dinner is ready, where it is being served, and what is being served.
More seriously though, I bought a tablet many years back which shipped with a simple word game that had insane permissions. Among them was access to contacts. When I pointed that out to people they would claim it was required for multi-player support. When I pointed out that one could add the contacts manually, most of the people thought I was insane even though this was at a time when people usually added contacts to desktop applications manually. They didn't understand that some people viewed it as impolite to share contacts of others without their permission (never mind the privacy implications). They didn't understand that most people would only play the game in single-user mode because it was a single play game with a "multi-player" mode tacked on. The multi-player mode was literally tacked on to harvest marketing data.
That's completely legitimate. It needs those permissions to tell your guests when dinner is ready, where it is being served, and what is being served.
More seriously though, I bought a tablet many years back which shipped with a simple word game that had insane permissions. Among them was access to contacts. When I pointed that out to people they would claim it was required for multi-player support. When I pointed out that one could add the contacts manually, most of the people thought I was insane even though this was at a time when people usually added contacts to desktop applications manually. They didn't understand that some people viewed it as impolite to share contacts of others without their permission (never mind the privacy implications). They didn't understand that most people would only play the game in single-user mode because it was a single play game with a "multi-player" mode tacked on. The multi-player mode was literally tacked on to harvest marketing data.