Absolutely. Last year Google was tracking the location of Android devices that used its push messaging service (so basically all of them) even when privacy features were turned on. Installing a Google-free custom rom is the only solution to prevent this. I have been using LineageOS without Gapps for the past month, and it's worked superbly.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/22/google-tr...