jevgeni made an excellent point and actually articulated his concern. Open source has absolutely nothing to do with how Google is tracking users here, and not only are there major parts in the Android ecosystem which are not open source but even more importantly, the case at hand obviously shows that is irrelevant whether something might be open source or not.
And that does not take into account that the vast majority of people do not run any version that has such features removed, as you hinted. If anything most users run versions which have additional stuff added (Samsung, etc.).
Once all of that is not true anymore you might have got a point, until then it is jevgeni who hit it on the head.
It's pretty easy to understand: Windows is closed so you'll never know if they're tracking you and if you find out they are, there's nothing you can do about it.
His post was flagged, so it looks like HN agrees with me about his whataboutism.
Running a custom hardware driver is easier in practice in Windows than Android.
Some parts of Android are open, but the closed-source Google Play Services are de facto part of the OS, and Google's business arrangements forbid companies from selling phones without them. So in practice you're in the same situation either way.
IDK exactly when it started, but at a certain point Google Maps and Locations services (or some other Google Play Services libs, not totally sure) on my phone started asking me to review a particular store or restaurant based on the fact that they knew I had visited that store or restaurant recently.
Sometimes the request for a review would appear while I was in that place of business. I found it both annoying and disturbing.
