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 A study that encompasses 82,000 pre-installed apps in more than 1,700 devices manufactured by 214 brands, reveals the existence of a complex ecosystem of manufacturers, mobile operators, app developers and providers, with a wide network of relationships between them. This includes specialized organizations in user monitoring and tracking and in providing Internet advertising.

In addition to the standard permissions defined in Android and that can be controlled by the user, the researchers have identified more than 4,845 owner or personalized permissions by different actors in the manufacture and distribution of the terminals. This type of permission allows the apps advertised on Google Play to evade Android's permission model to access user data without requiring their consent upon installation of a new app.

As for pre-installed apps on devices, 1,200 developers have been identified behind the pre-installed software, as well as the presence of more than 11,000 third party libraries (SDKs) included in the same. An important part of the libraries is related to advertising services and online tracking for commercial purposes. These pre-installed apps are executed with privileged permission and without being able, in the majority of cases, to be uninstalled from the system. An exhaustive analysis of the behavior of 50% of the identified apps reveal that many of them display potentially dangerous or undesired behavior.

In relation to the information offered upon logging into a new terminal, the lack of the apps transparency and of the Android operating system itself is brought to light, upon showing the user a list of permissions different from the real ones, thereby limiting capacity for decision-making regarding personal data management.   

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