Google appears to be overlooking their explicit ban on this.
If your app handles personal and sensitive user data, then you must ... Not sell personal and sensitive user data.
The rule also applies to third-party code:
If you include third party code (for example, an SDK) in your app, you must ensure that the third party code used in your app, and that third party's practices with respect to user data from your app, are compliant with Google Play Developer Program policies... For example, you must ensure that your SDK providers do not sell personal and sensitive user data from your app.
World would be a much better place if Google and Apple enforced their chosen policies for apps, and Meta and Google enforced their chosen policies for ads, but then these companies would be very slightly poorer.
There's no good reason to use your phone for any more than the bare minimum. Remove as many apps as possible. Treat it like a landline by just keeping in on a desk or something when you're at home.
A significant amount of the internet for normies today is app-first, where there may be no web version, or the web version lacks much of the core functionality of the service. Instagram led the way with this before Covid already, but the practice then spread widely.
The savvy crowd on HN hopefully already knows how to protect ourselves, but we can't really expect the mass public to do so. Especially when some younger people today are losing awareness of the very concept of the browser as they use dedicated apps for all their internet use.
Isn't this abuse what we are supposed to be paying their 15% Play Store tax to stop?
is there a list
Most apps will only be able to request location while running in the foreground.
Weather apps are unusual for having a reason to request background location access and so you should treat them with particular suspicion.
The savvy crowd on HN hopefully already knows how to protect ourselves, but we can't really expect the mass public to do so. Especially when some younger people today are losing awareness of the very concept of the browser as they use dedicated apps for all their internet use.