European consumer groups want regulators to act against Google tracking | Hacker News Reader

European consumer groups want regulators to act against Google tracking

reuters.com

167 points_of25 comments

People around me expressed concerns about Google Location History more frequently than about any other privacy topic in recent years (including Snowden). The visualisation of their personal data suddenly seems to make always-logged on Facebook users concerned about their privacy.

But they don't seem to connect the dots and only see Google here. Yet many other parties already have the same data about them, e.g. mobile carriers.

In 2011 a delegate of the German green party asked his wireless carriers for his location data and made a decent visualisation from it, provoking a discussion about metadata: https://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-vorratsdaten

Given that location history is turned off by default and that they, unlike e.g. mobile carriers allow you to delete or download your own data in raw format any time with a button click I am less concerned about it than about other current internet privacy topics. I may be wrong.

You musn't throw the baby out with the bath water! Carriers require knowledge of where you are to give you service - it is a physical limitation of cell technology. And carriers can and should be limited as to how they use that data (in my view they should not store it at all, only using it for your benefit, but I digress). But to argue that if one company has your location data, then it doesn't matter if ALL companies have your location data, well, this is clearly false.

>> Carriers require knowledge of where you are to give you service - it is a physical limitation of cell technology.

Quick nitpick. Carriers don't need to know where you are. They just need to know which cells handsets are moving in and out of. To find out where you actually are takes a bit of work. Unfortunately they are more willing to put in the work since personal data has become more valuable.

They don’t need to know your precise location, but, for $ome rea$on, they reportedly ¢olle¢t it anyway and $hare it with third partie$: [1]

1: https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-cell-carriers-selling-acces...

It's useful to track location to figure out which locations have spotty cellular coverage.

Useful maybe but expensive (at least in the older networks). Handset reported cell-tower signal strength information (what you need to triangulate) was only accessible to non-core parts of the network to reduce data load on regional links.

Typically you can find out which areas have spotty coverage by looking at the dropped call and load stats of base stations (which use directional antennas), looking at osm maps of roads and developments, collecting complaints, as well as occasionally calling out and taking field measurements.

> But to argue that if one company has your location data, then it doesn't matter if ALL companies have your location data

I'm not reading GP arguing that point, but rather that Google Location History already has excellent tooling around it, unlike wireless carriers.

Am I the only one who likes Location History?

> Am I the only one who likes Location History?

If I owned the data and it never left my device. Maybe.

But it is barely even optional. That is a huge issue.

Heres one for you. Years ago, when realtime traffic data was released on maps, I had an argument with a friend. I claimed that the only way they could get that accuracy was by recording the cell data of every single android user and validate the (ever changing) coverage maps through those users with GPS enabled (say while using maps for directions). What had me convinced was that around that time in my city nobody used google maps, most were on low-end androids and few phones had GPS enabled as it would eat your battery. Yet the traffic stats were realtime and accurate. My friend refused to believe they would be brazen enough to do that.

I remain convinced I was right. But strangely enough - it didn't annoy me much. Because out of all the things they could have used that data, they went ahead and built an incredibly useful product by solving a difficult technical data-related problem and then made it public and free. Compare that with what your bank and telco are doing.

That said, Im not commenting on the ethics. Even with the opt in, people are not really aware their locations are being tracked. We don't know what the data is used for or who it's shared with (looking at you - NSA). It's a breech of trust. Though it will be a shame to see realtime traffic stats go down :P

I think if Google Maps was an optional download and said "when you use Google Maps we are tracking where you are so we can show you things and know what kind of traffic is around", and when Google Maps was off or uninstalled they didn't track you, then they could offer the exact service you as talking about without causing GDPR problems. I believe Waze managed to do it like this without needing always-on OS-level triangulated coverage maps, but I could be wrong.

This seems like one of those things that is a huge thing A that they do with the data that no one likes, but in response Google says "but we do B with it so A is fine" and the response is "you could easily do B without doing A so just do B" and Google says "well we don't make as much money just from B so we will do A and since we also own the OS you'll just have to be ok with it".

All the popular maps get traffic data from people who have their map apps open. [1] Waze has somewhat gameified it to make users give them even more real-time data.

My SirusXM radio gets its data from traffic probes and GPS equipped trucks while also monitoring other conditions, probably from a command center. They state there can be a 20 minute delay.[2] I’m surprised they aren’t collecting data from my radio since my car has LTE.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Traffic

[2]https://m.siriusxm.com/servlet/Satellite?c=SXM_PageDetail_C&...

> Because out of all the things they could have used that data, they went ahead and built an incredibly useful product by solving a difficult technical data-related problem and then made it public and free.

Privacy violations are not free, even more so if your theory is correct since it’s violating the privacy of those not even using the so-called “free” maps. Since your not commenting on ethics, I won’t either, but it’s certainly not free.

You have no idea what they did, or are doing, with it behind the scenes.

That feature is the user accepted excuse for having the data.

I can't help but think that there's some competitors' money behind these attacks on Google... They provide location services which you can turn off or delete yourself, which is anonymous to anyone else, and there's no evidence they sell your data (they just anonymously connect you to businesses you search for). Versus carriers which track you without an option to opt-in or out and actually do sell your data to 3rd parties.

More detail on the practices being complained about here: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/side/google-manipulates-users-...

Google can track everything I do, and present much of that to me in a pretty easy to use interface. But it’s unable to show me how much money my clicks generated. Many of the links presented to me are brokered by google, they know how much a click is worth, because it accounts for it when it charges the advertiser, but it can’t tell me how much money was transferred from my click.

Can you know how much money other parties make in any of your transactions?

If you host ads through Adsense, Google tells you how many clicks, impressions, and dollars you've received, but they don't say "Joe Nobody clicked at 4:00pm, earning you $0.34".

Joe Nobody’s tracking history will show him the click, I think it should also show him how much money his attention and action was sold for.

And an army of Joe Nobody bots would attack to this information immediately. Please be realistic and why twist words..

Do you mean hackers. I guess hackers would trade my data in secret without providing me any compensation or itemised record of it.

Well, it might be technically able to do this, but have many reasons to not do show this to users.

you can easily find the average CPM rates for ads in your country. Example: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tqZyrVruR5k/WYCwQSiFnLI/AAAAAAAAG...

I have a few questions:

1. A company is offering services in exchange of personal information.

2. Clients are perfectly voluntarily and most of them knowingly using those services, volunteering their personal information.

3. Why in hell should a third party forbid the above mentioned two parties to conduct business under the treat of physical retaliation (being thrown to jail or shot in case you resist arrest)? Isn't it yet another "crime" without a victim? Don't we have way too many of those "crimes" already? How exactly are those regulators better than Shariah "politicians"?

your questions are either rhetorical or too harshly worded to have a chance of being answered before getting flagged

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