The network permission was displayed in the first versions of Android, then removed. I heard (hearsay alert) at the time that it was because so many apps needed it, and they wanted to get rid of always-yes questions. IIRC this happened before the rise of in-app advertising.
If people always answer yes, they grow tired and eventually don't notice the question. I've seen it happen with "do you want to overwrite the previous version of the document you're editing, which you saved two minutes ago?" At that point your question is just poisoning the well. Makes sense, but still, hearsay alert.
As far as I'm concerned they can grant this permission by default. I just want the power to disable it.
A while ago I wanted to scan the NFC chip in my passport. Obviously, I didn't want this information to leave my device.
There are many small utility apps and games that have no reason to require network access. So "need" is not quite the right word here. They _want_ network access and they _want_ to be able to bully users into granting it.
That's a weird justification for granting it by default. But I wouldn't care if I could disable it.
Android doesn't grant this by default, strictly speaking. Rather, an application can enable it by listing it in the application manifest. Most permissions require a question to to the user.
Well, the original intent was to ask the user for permission at installation time, which turned out to be a poor idea after a while. Perhaps you mean that it would have been simple to change the API in some particular way, while retaining compatibility with existing apps? If I remember the timeline correctly, which is far from certain, this happened around the same time as Android passed 100k apps, so a fairly strong compatibility requirement.
I mean, just make it "Granted" by default and give user ability to control it. Permissions API was already broken few times(i.e. Location for bluetooth and granular Files permissions)
> Does Google refuse to veriy their firmware if they offer this feature?
If a manufacturer doesn't follow the Android CDD (https://source.android.com/docs/compatibility/cdd), Google will not allow them to bundle Google's closed source apps (which include the Google Play store). It was originally a measure to prevent fragmentation. I don't know whether this particular detail (not exposing this particular permission) is part of the CDD.
It's not explicitly part of the CDD, but implicitly. The device must support the Android permissions model and is only allowed to extend this implementation using OWN permissions (in a different namespace than 'android'), but not allowed to deviate from it.
INTERNET is a "normal permission", automatically granted at install time if declared in the manifest.
OEMs cannot change the grant behavior without breaking compatibility because:
The CDD explicitly states that the Android security model must remain intact.
Any deviation would fail CTS (Compatibility Test Suite) and prevent Play certification.
Well, apart from the OEM violating the Android Compatibility Definition Document (CDD), failing the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) and thus not getting their device Play-certified (so not being able to preload all the Google services, there is an economical impact as well:
As OEM you want Carriers to sell your device above everything else, because they are able to sell large volumes.
Carriers make money using network traffic, Google is paying Revenue-Share for ads to Carriers (and OEMs of certain size). Carriers measure this as part of the average revenue per user (ARPU).
--> The device would be designed to create less ARPU for the Carrier and Google and thus be less attractive for the entire ecosystem.
