For this only the notice that it's turned off comes up for me. Great. Alas it's Google that knows everywhere I've been https://google.com/maps/timeline?pb
But the FB location history to me is just out of the blue. FB was meant to be just a social network, why the heck do they need that information, I thought FB just connect me with my friends (and do things related to that). It's a bit abusive imho.
P.S. I'm aware of all the scandals, regulations, profile shadowing etc.
That functionality is tied in with Google Assistant as well, so if you have it enabled it tracks your Android phone all the time, not just when you're using Google Maps.
So that they can make money so that they can provide the social network services for free to everyone, so that they can actually have a large social network.
Sorry but this is fucked up. Why not not. Yesterday's discussion on overheads of GDPR rattled me into mild headache and today you prove why exactly GDPR came to be. It's none of <oversea corporation XYZ>'s business to know where I've been. That's why not.
> But the FB location history to me is just out of the blue
It's analogous.
Totally agree with you.
What I'm trying to say is that the `location history` as a feature makes sense in google maps, because, well it's a map app.
But the fact that FB knows where I've been even though I don't have the FB app on the phone, only the Messenger Lite, is a total surprise to me.
20 years ago when the world ran on paper maps people didn't need to communicate their location to map makers via phone, so why would they have that need now?
I understand your frustration, but I think we are exaggerating a bit because of these FB scandals. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure Google is abusive in data collecting too. But it doesn't mean we need to cut all the nice features from now days technology.
P.S. Overall I agree with your point, and I think GDPR is a good start in regulating Evil corps. Hope I don't contribute to your headache today :)
We both know that, but if you tried to say that people's needs have radically changed in that time then I fail to see how.
> can be useful to a lot of people
It sounds to me more like an excuse product managers have come up with to explain away why one would plausibly use an invasive feature most people wouldn't give informed consent for. And a lot of people isn't most people or most informed people. I would think most people would be satisfied with offline location bookmarking just as they were with sharpie scribbling 20 years ago. And if they were properly informed they probably wouldn't agree to 24/7 tracking with a chance of loan or job denial on the off chance that it will help them find a place they've forgot to bookmark and couldn't possibly find it via google no matter how hard they tried.
> GDPR is a good start in regulating Evil corps
Yes, evil corps are evil but GDPR is completely mindbogglingly shit start. And it makes things worse. Ask yourself, how do you authenticate a person who emailed you GDPR data request? How do you know you aren't talking with your user's spouse or a hacker and are make things worse for that user by dumping data to requester?
Playing devils advocate here - don’t store a single thing more than needed. It’s a toxic liability.
Easier said than done and is harder than what sanctimonious pricks that designed this law probably had in mind.
Everyone with presence on Apple's platforms fears them like the wrath of God and you can't risk not storing data that your users _volunteered_ if that will help you stay on Apple's good side by having better control over more abusive portion of your users.
Then there's the question of whether it is ethical to delete data that was volunteered that could however aid in discovering criminals that chose to abuse your system. Authors of these laws probably think that and nsa would know that I would often seem to agree with them but deep down I'm not so sure as I have deep suspicion that we are cared for and our european security is deeply dependent on arrangements similar to ones done in bletchley. If it's moral for them to store data then it should be by analogy for us. Or in short I dread that my inaction on my web properties would aid existing criminality so out of ethical considerations I'd rather store more.
But now with GDPR I have fears of scenarios like someone admitting to cheating on their spouse on my properties, deleting that info later on, then the spouse discovering that through GDPR request and committing physical violence. Or dictators hunting dissidents by submitting GDPR requests over european VPN. (edit: maybe they wouldn't even need VPN as I'm from EU and would have to grant requests irrespective of user's citizenship? headache)
I don't want to contribute to either scenario but it would seem EU is thrusting this headache of a choice on me, so as a citizen of EU country, fuck the EU.
Their needs have changed, because their expectations have changed. 20 years ago I didn't expect my map to be able to ask my calendar when I had to be at a place, to figure out ahead of time the best route. It's a niche example but I think the point stands.
Because I don't want them to store it. It's ridiculously user-hostile and privacy-intrusive that Google maps won't even save your searches if you have location history turned off.
If only my phone had some sort of area where you could store data locally, then maybe I wouldn't have to keep typing the same thing over and over again in Maps. One can only dream.
> They know you've traveled to Europe, they know all the places you went and how long you were in each one. How is that not useful?
But how is deriving those facts from 5 year old location data actually useful to them? AFAIK, they don't try to drive "engagement" by inducing nostalgia with push notifications [1]. I don't really see the use of old data like that for ad-targeting beyond a coarse "travels internationally"-type categories that don't really require keeping the data around.
[1] Remember when you were in Europe? Wasn't it fun? We were there too, following you. Please, please log on now to see what we tracked!
They definitely do this with Google Photos "revisit this day" stuff, but it seems just an engagement play than a direct monetization one.
If nothing else, they can sell ads against you for "Category: Travelled to X place within the last Y years".
And data mining can tell that people who like that tourist spot A in country X also liked tourist spot B in city G in country Y a lot, so, tourism board of city G/country Y, here's a good target for your ad.
And not just tourist stuff. Data mining might even tell they like a particular brand of, I don't know, yoghurt, so let's sell some of that yoghurt!
Ad-targeting is not the only use Google has for data. Google's core view of the world is that useful signals can be extracted from data; the more data you gather, the more useful signal you can extract in the future, even if we don't currently know how to find it. In short, gather all the data, and apply machine learning to it until it produces useful (monetizable) results[1].
Maybe Google will find ways to use this data for advertising, or maybe it has an obvious use in some future project that we won't understand for decades. The point is that we don't currently know all of the uses for data, but Google is betting that those uses will eventually be discovered.
The longer the data exists and the larger the database becomes, it's value increases. Higher value means increases potential profit for a hacker. (or being sold in the future if financial stability fails)
The problem with letting Google have this data is the same bet that Google is making: we don't know all of the ways data can be used, but it's likely that many innovative uses will discovered in the future. Unfortunately, while Google is probably only considering the subset of uses that are useful for business, the full set of uses that will be discovered will inevitably contain uses that are very dangerous to some people. An obvious example is the recent attempt to determine sexual orientation from portraits[2]. Does data about where you went 5 years ago reveal something important about you when combined with the many other features Google knows about you in a big deep learning model?
[1] If the underlying assumptions are true and if it will necessarily produce useful (monetizable) results are open questions.
* ad targeting based on specific locations you've been to
Sounds useful enough to keep the data and there might be more uses in the future.
Cell phone companies for example may have legitimate reasons to keep location data for billing disputes for 60 days or so, but holding that data longer makes it available to all kinds of agencies, law enforcers and those with that kind of access who would abuse that access, marketing groups, divorce lawyers, accident attorneys, all kinds of possible things that are detrimental to the end user.
The data companies profit from sharing this data, and it costs the end user. Whatever benefits one can come up with, I think the scale is obviously tipped in the "more useful against you" than "for you" direction when it comes to long term location storage.
Have you read the small print?
Nearly appropriate anecdote: For a customer, the SNMP "public" community has been deemed a security issue. The GUI for three of their systems showed that the SNMP agent was not configured, let alone running. $snmpwalk -v2c -c public w.x.y.z enterprises from my PC says otherwise.
Here we have a saying: "it does what it says on the tin" to imply a form of integrity (a quote from an advert, funnily enough.) Not all tins tell the complete truth.
Maybe I turned something off ages ago and forgot?
>As of Google Maps version 3.2.1, you cannot turn on Location Reporting and History from the Google Maps app for iPhone and iPad. If you have Location History turned on from another Google app, like the Google app, the Google Maps app may still use Location History data stored in your Google account to give you better search results.
I use it for time tracking, time spent at clients sites, etc. It's not perfect, but perfectly good 95% of the time!
As far as I can tell, there's no "disable" control on that page (only "Delete All Location Data") and there's no global toggle on my Account -> Privacy page.
Wow. I never cease to be amazed at how many hoops they make you jump through. NO, Facebook, I will not install your awful app just to disable Location tracking. https://i.imgur.com/sUR3FU5.png. Can't wait until they silently start scraping my browser's location and I have to know to login and delete that data regularly.
I know I can disable notifications but I'm not sure if it would disable polling in the background. I guess the only way is to keep location toggled off completely.