This is after forcing login to a store account:
At least they don’t hide in their ToS that:
“l agree to let Walmart monitor my use of Walmart WiFi, including to:
- Determine my presence in Walmart stores
- Associate information about me with my Walmart account
- Improve products and services
- Gather market insights about my in-store purchases and activities”
But that’s not enough, they need to monitor your internet activity further too.
For further reading, some greatest hits (the section headers on Wiki’s Criticism of Walmart):
- Local communities
- Allegations of predatory pricing and supplier issues
- Labor relations
- Poorly run and understaffed stores
- No AEDs in stores (automated external defibrillators)
- Imports and globalization
- Product selection
- Taxes
- Animal welfare
- Midtown Walmart
- Opioids settlement
That is a fair take, but looking at it from a general user’s perspective, they just want a phone that works, they won’t tinker to get it working like they want.
In that regard I find the setup wizard on iOS and Android to have two very different personalities.
iOS guides you step by step, it talks about sharing user data and gives you controls to turn it off right in the wizard.
Last time I set up an Android phone, a Nokia 6.1, running Android One, Android was more of a “don’t worry about privacy, just logon and have fun!” personality.
So for normal users, my reaction is that iOS is better.