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Comment by codingslave | Hacker News Reader

The main business model of these two firms is quickly becoming selling location data to hedge funds. This needs to be illegal.

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I've really appreciated that Android has started telling me when apps are pulling my location in the background. Every once in a while I am ok with that application doing it, but for the vast majority I immediately disable that app's location access.

After a couple weeks, I'm much more confident that my location data isn't leaking all over the place.

Both Android and iOS now allow you to give an app location access only while it is in the foreground

They don't need gps location shared to know where you are. They can get this data via sniffing wifi and bluetooth devices in the area (including other phones) and knowing where those devices are.

That's not what they were referring to. Android alerts you when an app tries to access location data in the background and allows you to disable it.

There's a system-wide setting to disable app access to BT and wifi location data.

Turning off gps based location data provides a false sense of security, which is the point I was trying to make. There are other ways to get your location that are nearly as easy and precise. I don't know anything about disabling app access to BT and wifi location data, what does that mean exactly? Is it disabling the ability for apps to sniff nearby devices?

That has been their primary business model for many years now.

I imagine the data from both of them, standalone is quickly becoming flawed/inaccurate. From Foursquare's perspective, less users means less data coming in, and you need a LOT of data for location insights to be meaningful.

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