I've turned off Google Play Services' permission to access location services, camera and microphone. Google Maps now basically doesn't work (it runs at ~10fps and the search box is non-interactive). Gmail scolds me every 10 second while composing emails that "this app won't work properly unless you give Google Play Services access to your camera and microphone" (but works fine otherwise.)

Their piping of apps' access to things like location through Google Play Services to force you to give them access makes a mockery of the permissions system. I really don't like the way they've been doing things the past few years.

Edit: Gmail complains about lack of access to camera and microphone, not location services. Fixed.

Thank you. This has been going on for a while (as I recall, a Maps update last year first committed this crime - wish I had an apk backup of the prior version).

I now use HERE WeGo or OsmAnd (on non-GAPPS devices, from f-droid). While the experience is not nearly as cool, I love the fact that I am not participating in uncontrolled monitoring and unexpected battery drainage.

And if you have the location service always enabled this gets creepy https://www.google.com/maps/timeline

I am prompted that each time I activate the GPS to use OsmAnd (for example).

The worst is that if you accept it once, this setting is saved and there is no obvious way in the UI to change it back (which was possible in the past I think).

To reset it, go in the Applications manager in the settings, choose Google Play Services and reset all its data.

There is no way it is a bug, someone had to think and put this deceptive behaviour as a feature (and someone had to design its deceptive UI, someone had to do unit testing for this deceptive behaviour, someone had to QA it…).

I was once dismissing it for like 2 months before I accidentally accepted it.

And Google is really shitty app publisher in more ways than this. Has anyone ever seen a meaningful changelog in any major app of theirs?