been playing since day 1. my phone kept acting weird after every session. took me a while to figure out why
battery dying faster than usual. phone warm after raids. lag that wouldn't go away even
after closing the app. blamed the update. then the next update. eventually started actually looking into it.
background location was the first thing. pogo keeps tracking your GPS after you close it.
that alone explains the battery drain most people complain about.
then i checked the full permission list. 142 MB app. 42 permissions. the ad stack alone:
ACCESS_ADSERVICES_ATTRIBUTION
ACCESS_ADSERVICES_AD_ID
ACCESS_ADSERVICES_CUSTOM_AUDIENCE
ACCESS_ADSERVICES_TOPICS
AD_ID
5 separate ad permissions. for a pokemon game. but the one i still can't explain: READ_CONTACTS. no feature in the game uses your contacts. people flagged this back in 2016. niantic never addressed it. you can revoke it in settings and literally nothing breaks.
niantic is a real company, not some shady startup. but pogo is also one of the largest real-world location mapping operations ever built. every walk you take feeds that.
if you want to check for yourself:
- android settings → apps → pokemon go →permissions (check background location)
- AppXpose if you want to see the full APK breakdown
- revoke contacts permission, game runs fine
still day 1 player. not going anywhere.
just thought more people should know this.