Contacts Permissions and Trial Period

[James Peterson]

I have had many questions regarding this and why it is used so I figure I'll try to make it as obvious as I can.  

 

The Contacts permission is only used to get the user account on the phone.  I use this account to create a hash that I store along with a date.  I do not store the actual user email or account information, just a hash of the email salted private key.  I have no idea who or what the hashes are while looking at them.  I use this to compare the current access date of the account and the first access date of the account.  When that comparison is greater then 30 days I expire the trial period and request the user to purchase an access level. At this time if you purchase an access level you can now disable the Contacts permissions as it is no longer needed or used.

 

I hope this clears up any concerns about what I need the information for. 

 

To clear up information regarding another app that does not or appears to not require this permission.  (ML lite/trial) also uses this permission, but is built against a lower ADK(android development kit) version.  I build with a target version of 23.  As of version 23 it is required to ask for this permission from the user.  If you build an app with an ADK22 or lower the app is not required to ask for permission to use this.  The only difference is that I make it visible that I am using this permission and ML does not.  

 

Update:

Here is a direct link to the exact permission that I am using.  

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission.html#GET_ACCOUNTS