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Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

Good for you. But what about the rest of us? Or even yourself on any other day?

To equate privacy with convenience is ill advised.

Location history is off by default. I've turned it on because I'm happy with the trade-offs involved, but if you don't think it's worth it just don't turn it on.

Congratulations on the Google exit, though if I recall from previous discussions you don't view ads as a negative on society. So your trade-offs will probably look different than many others in that regard.

Turn it off? Use another device?

It should be off by default, rather than on by default, so you can choose to have it, and we don't accidentally go to prison for going to a doctor who was legal to visit last week and forgetting to alter one of a million privacy settings on one of fifty devices.

It is off by default, on iOS at least: you have to open Google maps and opt-in to always-on location tracking.

It’s by far my favorite feature of Google maps.

Off by default in one app on one device, we still have to worry about smartwatches, cell tower positions, network geolocation, 400 thousands apps with location access to GPS or who knows what; your car reporting back to tesla that you ate somewhere that sold pork in saudi arabia, or visited an abortion clinic in texas, or who knows.

It's too damn much.

I personally don't use corporate shit anymore, but I know that's a near-impossible tech for people whose full-time job isn't deep tech. We need to make life livable for those people, by legislating foremost of all, but also by making tools available and easy to use, and I'm sure many things I can't think of, but we should at least be discussing it.

That wasn't the statement being responded to.

I was able to determine exactly where and when catalytic converter was stolen from my car, thanks to my location history data.

I used it on other occasions as well. My only complaint is that it's not more precise.

Couldn't you tell by the load roar when you started the car?

Before I figured out what the loud roar meant I already forgot when I parked, and when I first noticed any issue.

Google location history let me check that the car was parked where it was parked just for one night (I misremembered it as longer period).

Then I could accurately relate it to the police. Which of course will lead to nothing. But I felt better when I could make statements with cerainity.

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