This! They used to allow you to, but now I don't save my home address and can't use a lot of Google features because they want you to enable activity tracking. WTF... why do I need all my activity to be tracked to use basic features?
I will also use Google maps to find the route to some restaurant, turn off the GPS because I don't like being tracked and it's no too far, then head to the restaurant within 10-60 minutes of when I checked the GPS. If I have wifi on I will invariably get asked to rate the restaurant within 5 minutes of arriving there, regardless of how much time has passed since I checked the route.
I currently use a Pixel phone, but based on the experiences I've had, I will be switching to an iPhone in the hope that I get tracked less. After switching to Firefox and ddg as my daily drivers, I just need to get off of Gmail and I will be google free
It would have at least been corporate speak to have an option called GPS that people assumed was location tracking and was not. Having an option called "Location" that does not stop your phone from tracking your location when turned off has crossed the line into fraudulent behavior for me
It's like browser fingerprinting. It doesn't take very many bits of entropy before you are identifiable
The true reason is probably a little less cheeky: keeping track of copies is hard. And here we end or digression into apologetics and return to criticism, ensuring correctness in keeping track of copies is surely not a very high priority.
So the address is still there, they are just actively blocking you from making use of it in most of their apps (but evidently not all of them, as you noted above).
I get it, it's frustrating as hell, but I can understand their perspective.
It's because that private corp is so big that it is starting to control much of the internet and devices so this is an issue very much in the public purview.
It's not as simple as take it or leave it. The corp in question spends billions to insinuate itself into your life, make you dependant, eat competition, and then you can take it, but you definitely can't leave it.
Its time for google to be broken up.
tl;dr: Yes, but you might have to jump through some hoops
Yes, either you take it, or leave it. Imagine everyone leaving google today. They can't make money. People made them rich, people can take them down. If genpop doesn't understand, you have to find your own ways to navigate thru the internet because google won't go away anytime soon.
I would love to hear your opinion about how to take google down, without making people "leave it".
That is a false dilemma, because there are more than two choices. To many of us, the third option is the one we choose.
You're right, but the percentage of Google users aware of how evil they are is probably less than 0.5%.
An overwhelmingly large percentage of users won't care about what could happen as long as nothing happens directly affecting them. Mass surveillance companies like Google, Facebook know this and take advantage of it.
Technology activists aren't strong enough to start a wave that would lead to people abandoning these evil corps..
Also, as others mentioned, they eat up all competition.. so there aren't really any good options left apart from Google products in areas they compete.
It's odd that Google Maps and Google Assistant both have different methods and rules for the storage of home and work locations.
I do think Google Maps is the best, but the choices exist, and for some cases they work even better.
In the last 18 months, Google transitioned from being a 'build products people will use to enhance their daily lives' company (with Google profiting immensely but for the enhancement of humankind) to a company that is nonchalant in the sale of human data, often to the detriment of their users' experience
Maybe it's because they created a situation where it's nearly impossible to avoid "their" software because it's integrated into the product the user actually paid for.
If you buy an Android phone you don't buy bare metal. That's not how Android phones are marketed and it's not how Google wants Android phones to be perceived. An Android phone is a device with Google Play, Google Maps and Google Search integrated into the operating system and providing core services. That's how Google wants you to think about Android and it's in their best interest for you to do so.
From a customer point of view, Google Maps is part of the Android device's core functionality. From a marketer's point of view, it's the same. From Google's point of view, it's also the same.
But although Google Maps itself has great offline functionality and in theory only needs online access for map data, traffic information and optimised routing, Google plays bait and switch by demanding you consent to being spied on in order to actually use it.
Sure, it's their software and they can do what they want but customer rights exist, privacy rights exist and competition law exists. They're being intentionally deceitful and maliciously abuse their position to coerce users into giving consent for providing Google with far more data than they need to provide the service.