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That's been part of Android for years. Here is one article describing what needs to be done.

It's significant to note that it doesn't matter where you bought your device - even Nexus devices purchased directly from Google Play can be blocked by the carrier.

e.g. The network with the largest market share in Australia, Telstra - is blocking the Lollipop OTA update from all Nexus devices.

Oh that DMCA was issued by Cyveillance ...

According to an Ausdroid "excllusive", a "Qualcomm representative" has already:
  - repudiated and retracted the takedown notices,
  - promised they will pursure any issues directly with the project maintainers.
  - appologized to the project maintainers.

Unfortunately, this was in a communication with Ausdroid and apparently not in a form that would let GitHub over-the-holiday staff put the repositories back up immediately.

That's a pity. Many of the contributors to open source projects are volunterers with day jobs. This makes three-day weekend holidays "prime time" for a hackfest. Taking down the repositories over such a period is a serious hit to productivity. If they'd done it early in the week, rather than just before a three-day holiday, their error could have been corrected in hours rather than (exceptionally important) days.

(Fortunately, since the revision control system is git, where each checkout is a full copy of the repository, the hit is mainly impeeding inter-member cooperation, rather than bringing all work on the projects to a screeching halt.)

I hope both Qualcom and some of the affected projects bring actions against Cyveillance, if only to make them leery of issuing anti-FOSS takedowns at such sensitive times.

Technically, Qualcomm violated the GPL license on the code it contributed to github.. Speciffically, the clause which licenses the code in perpetuity. Thus they can no longer offer their products for use in any Andriod phone or device which uses GPL'd software.

But if looks like Qualcomm has quickly seen the error of its ways and issued a retraction/apology.

Of course there isn't any way to disallow notifications per app either because that would go against the whole ad based ecosystem.

What? You've been able to disable notifications on a per app basis since 4.1.

Manage Apps -> Select App -> Uncheck Show Notifications

Example: http://cdn.ausdroid.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Disable-Notifications.png

Motorola? Are you watching?

Why yes, they are...

Now if only all those manufacturers also put some work into retroactively unlocking existing, non-future phones... *sigh*

np: Autechre - r ess (Oversteps)