After updating my toothbrush firmware, I got a prompt on my phone asking for it to track my location.
Why does my toothbrush need to know my location constantly?
This is because Bluetooth _could_ be used to determine a user's location by using beacons and constantly scanning or whatever.
But this has led to nothing but endless confusion for users (and constantly gets highlighted as suspicious in online forums), so they really need to come up with better wording. Like "This app is requesting Bluetooth permissions, which _could_ be used to determine your location".
I have no idea why google bundled those together, instead of treating them as separate things alltogether.
No, they need to come up with a better way of communication that doesn't involve leaking permission.
Generally speaking, if you want wireless communication, you'll need some way of uniquely identifying each participant in the wireless space. Data aggregators can then drive around on the streets and associate device IDs with physical addresses.
A bluetooth communications setup (or future alternative) will want to be able to know what device IDs are around it. (You want to connect to your wireless toothbrush - not your neighbors). A malicious developer can then use that access to the ID list, compare it against databases of known ID locations, and get a really good guesstimate of your location.
Luckily the toothbrush works perfectly without the App or any Bluetooth connection at all, wouldn't have even noticed it had Bluetooth if I hadn't looked at the packaging.
My treadmill was a bit different: While unpacking and building, I saw what was probably 8 or 9 notices claiming that the treadmill is "locked", has to be unlocked by registering it with iFit, and will not work otherwise. It was everywhere: On the packaging, as a piece of paper inside, in the manual, on the treadmill itself... New York Times had an article mentioning you just have to hold down the "iFit" button for 20 or 30 seconds, and that unlocked it permanently. Without having to pair with anything. Weird world.
https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/160479/why-do-i-...
IMO this is counterintuitive for users. It would be like telling people on windows “This app wants to wipe your C drive” every time an app asks for admin permissions - it could wipe your C drive, but that’s not what it’s asking for. IMO the permissions should be separate, but the approval modal should note that info about leaking location.
Well the flip side is that they don't warn the users enough, and they get roasted by the media for "not sufficiently warning the users" or "being complicit in user tracking" or whatever.