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Comment by yorwba | Hacker News Reader

> Sure, but the next time you want to see your Google Maps history, you'll question your own sanity.

Indeed I'd question my sanity, as I can usually remember roughly where I've been yesterday and don't see much use in looking up where I'd been a year ago. Of course I might be missing out on something, since I don't use Google Maps at all. (I prefer OpenStreetMap.)

In what kind of situation is being able to look up one's own location history actually useful?

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It's useful when you start typing the name of a business into Maps and it auto-completes "Pla" into "Planet Pooch Dog Grooming" (where I take the dog frequently.) It can show me that result, instead of the 100 other businesses & addresses in the area that start with those 3 letters, because of this data.

> In what kind of situation is being able to look up one's own location history actually useful?

  1. Remembering the name of a restaurant you went to two weeks ago.
  2. Tracing your steps to look for something you might have lost.
  3. Proving you were somewhere at a certain time.
  4. Documenting a trip you took in the past.

The more personal information you generate, the more technology can help you. But if that information is tarnished or does not exist, then so too are the insights and benefits.

And in the many years I have had a smartphone I have never once had a reason to look up my location history.

You're a single data point, so I'm not sure what your conclusion could even be.

That android should not be by default tracking every user and sending a of that data to google since most users aren't aware it is even happening and most users have no use for this data. They know where they have been.

You're cherrypicking. A user does not need to know what or how much data they produce in order for that data to do useful work for them. I've already explained why a recent location history could be useful to a location-suggestion algorithm.

The major use-case IMO is for alibis if you get wrongly accused of a crime.

I once had a legal use for my location history that wasn't quite as dramatic. Someone damaged our car while it was parked. When the police asked at what time we arrived, I just pulled up my location history.

I was a bit frustrated when the police wrote down "around 8" instead of 8:14. :)

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