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I want to use GCM (Google Cloud Messaging), however it seems now I have to use it within Firebase. The Firebase terms of service say if I use Firebase Analytics I am bound by an additional set of terms of service.

I do not want any information about my app or its usage captured or shared with Google.

My question is if I implement GCM in my mobile app will it automatically be using Firebase Analytics?

If not, how do I avoid using Firebase Analytics, or how do I turn it off completely. The google documentation is not clear.

Thanks in advance

rideintothesun
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2 Answers2

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Not sure if you can disable it completely but you can try with setting setAnalyticsCollectionEnabled to false. Something like this in every activity:

FirebaseAnalytics.getInstance(this).setAnalyticsCollectionEnabled(false)
kosev
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You can start by putting this within the application tag in your AndroidManifest: 

<meta-data android:name="firebase_analytics_collection_deactivated" android:value="true" />

Also see Disable Analytics Collection

In addition, you can apparently now disable crash reporting.

However, that may not be everything. In order to really be sure that your app is not transmitting any information to Google, you should watch the app's network traffic using a tool such as Charles Proxy.

But it's hard to be sure that no usage or other significant data is going to google servers. I have seen calls to the following google servers happening and it's not clear what data is being transmitted:

  • app-measurement.com
  • safebrowsing.google.com
  • android.clients.google.com
  • clients2.google.com
  • android.googleapis.com
albert c braun
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    And a gazillion of others like accounts.google.com, www.gstatic.com, play.googleapis.com, etc. (and another gazillion of obfuscated URLs like https://r1-----sn-n4v7sn7yy.gvt1.com) and such. – Martin Marconcini Jul 11 '17 at 00:40
  • thanks. i see what you mean. it does seem pretty hard to become confident that no significant usage data is making it back to google. – albert c braun Jul 11 '17 at 01:39
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    It’s probably impossible (\*) to achieve. (\*) and by impossible I meant: pretty hard, like you described. Google will always be google. (A.k.a.: 80% complete APIs and Customer Analysis for the purpose of selling ads). – Martin Marconcini Jul 11 '17 at 01:42